Thursday, September 29, 2011

 

Sabre Bears

Even though Fighter World has steps near lots of the exhibits so that you can see into the cockpit, these steps are built for people. That is a bit of a problem for small bears. As you can see in the top photo, I just couldn't get high enough to show Blu and Milkshake what the inside of the Sabre looked like. Fortunately, Dad and I have several Sabres in our model collection and I could teach the others about the aircraft using one of these when we got home. The Sabre at Fighter World is a CAC Sabre, built right here in Australia in the 1950s. Although Australian Sabres look like the North American F-86 Sabre, they are much more powerful. They use a Rolls-Royce Avon engine and, to fit this engine in, the fuselage had to be redesigned. It is wider and the air intake is 25% bigger than on the F-86. The Avon Sabre also has two 30mm cannon instead of the machine guns of the American version. Sabres are superb in the air. I see the one at Temora Aviation Museum sometimes and it is almost as beautiful as the Spitfire. Our model is pretty good too, don't you think?

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Sunday, September 25, 2011

 

South Solitary

Here's another lighthouse that we have been trying to get photos of for ages. It is on South Solitary island and it is almost impossible to get to except by helicopter. It was classed as the most isolated one on the New South Wales coast. The lighthouse started operation in 1880 and has been in continuous operation ever since, except for a few days in 1942 when some ships were torpedoed nearby. We have tried to get close by boat in the past, with no success. So it was a great surprise to find that we could see the lighthouse easily from Emerald Beach, and an even bigger surprise to find that Dad could hold the camera steady enough to get decent photos at full zoom. You can see the lighthouse and the keepers' cottages and the path from the jetty. The island coast is so rugged that boats couldn't tie up there and supplies for the keepers had to be loaded into a basket that was winched up to the end of the jetty and then winched or rolled up the steep path. The light is automated now and the only visitors are maintenance crews that come by helicopter every 3 months. Maybe we will get better photos one day, but for now this will have to do.

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Hornets Away !!

At Williamtown, between Port Stevens and Newcastle, is a fantastic museum called Fighter World. It is just outside the boundary fence at the end of the main runway of RAAF base Williamtown, where the Australian Strike Fighter force is based. On the other side of the airfield is Newcastle airport. So when you visit Fighter World you not only have a museum with examples of most of the RAAF fighters to look at, but also lots of military and commercial aircraft taking off or landing right in front of you. We spent hours there on our way home from our Gold Coast trip. I really liked the exhibits, because you can get right up to the aeroplanes. There are even ladders for you to climb up for a look inside the cockpit. There is also a viewing deck where you can see what's happening all over the airfield. The thing that I loved most of all was sitting in the outdoor cafe watching the activity on the base. Milkshake, Blu and I were able to sit in the shade and see Hawks, Hornets, PC-9s and airliners taking off only a couple of hundred metres away. The FA-18 Hornets in this picture went straight overhead. Us small critters loved the noise, even if some kids at another table didn't. Where was Scruffy? Well, Scruff doesn't like aircraft much so he was catching up on sleep back in the car.

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Wednesday, September 21, 2011

 

Taking Blu Fishing

There is a great aquarium at Coffs Harbour. It is fairly small, but it has exhibits of the fish and critters that live in the ocean there. Blu had never been to an aquarium. In fact he had never seen fish, so I had to take him in to see. He was a lot happier when he realized that he wouldn't have to get wet. Turns out that he loves fish and, like me, would love to go snorkelling with the Oldies. In the top left photo you can see me telling him all about the clown fish in the right-hand tank and the octopus in the left one. The octopus is hard to see because he folds himself into the shape of whatever he is on and also changes his colour to match. This one is called a "Gloomy Octopus", but actually he seemed pretty happy. Mum has some great video of him prancing around his tank. Occies are superb escape artists and this one has a very heavy lid on his tank to keep him in. Blu loved the Lion fish even though it is dangerous, but my favourites are the Clowns. Actually, at present I am looking after a small aquarium. Brothers Trent and Nathan are overseas and I am feeding Nathan's fish while he is gone. So far they are all alive and well, but I will be glad to see him back. Looking after other people's pets is a big responsibility.

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Tuesday, September 20, 2011

 

Port Stephens Light

There is a lighthouse at Nelson Bay that is very hard to get to. Since Mum has this urge to photograph every lighthouse that she can, this one has been a target for ages. The problem is that it is on an island which is connected to the mainland by a sand spit. You can walk across to the island at low tide. However, it is a long walk from the road to the sand spit and across to the far side of the island. The Oldies couldn't make it between tides, so walking to the lighthouse is not an option for them. But guess what? Our whale-watching boat went past the island and when the captain found out about Mum's interest he took the boat in close so that she could get photos. So here is the Port Stevens lighthouse. It was built in 1862 and is now, like most Australian lighthouses, solar powered and automatic. In the top image you can also see the ruins of the keepers' cottages. These were burnt by vandals in the mid-1980s. Small bears hate vandals. Anyhow, that's one more for our growing collection of lighthouse photos, courtesy of a very helpful boat captain.

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Saturday, September 17, 2011

 

Big Sandy Mountain

At Coffs Harbour I found this big mountain of sand. It was near the edge of a car park, so while the Oldies were taking photos of the harbour and the approaching storm Blu and I set out to climb to the top of the pile. Climbing sand is difficult. It slips away from under your feet and you slide back down until you find some firmer stuff. Blu has the advantage here because he is so small and light. We found that the best place to tackle this climb was along a ridge. It was just like Hillary and Tenzing going up the South Col on Mt Everest. It was a long, hard struggle to the top but we had a great sense of achievement. Then it started to sprinkle and Dad just walked up and took us back to the car. He didn't even have to stretch very far up to reach us. Sometimes Oldies can really spoil the moment.

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Whales in the Rough


We stopped for a few days at Nelson Bay on our way back from the Gold Coast. It is a bit quiet there in the winter months, but one thing that is happening is the migration of Humpback whales along the coast. They come close inshore at Nelson Bay and there are lots of boats that take you out to see them. The day we went it was fairly rough. Just take a look at these photos of one of the bigger boats being bounced around in the 2 m swells. You can see some brave and determined whale-watchers out on deck, but most of the passengers were inside trying not to be sea-sick. Our boat was only half the size of that one, so we got bounced around a lot more, but small bears don't get sea-sick and the Oldies usually don't either (it takes 5 m or more to get Dad crook). Yes, we saw some whales but they were all travelling fairly fast. Mostly we only saw the puff as they came up to breathe, and the tail and fin as they dived. Most of the passengers on our boat were thrilled by that. I wonder how they would react to the magical close encounters we had a few years back on out trip to Hervey Bay (check my Dec 2006 archive for image).

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Saturday, September 10, 2011

 

Going Bananas

Just north of Coffs Harbour is a tourist trap called the "Big Banana". Coffs is about the southern limit of commercial banana growing in Australia and the Big Banana has displays and tours that show you how it's done. You can take a ride around the banana plantation, and try selected banana goodies in the cafe. Now, Australia is very short of bananas at present. Most are grown in Queensland and a series of cyclones wiped last year's crop out, so Coffs bananas have skyrocketed in price. In fact, we couldn't find bananas to buy in Coffs, all of the crop is shipped to the cities as fast as it can be harvested. One of the displays is a huge banana with a strange critter hugging it. Blu and I had to climb up and see what was happening. Turns out that the Monkey and the banana are both plastic fakes. A pity, because I like small monkeys and would really love to have a banana this size to munch on.

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Bears at the Beach #2

This is the closest that I managed to get Blu to the surf at Emerald Beach. He eventually got game enough to come down out of the tree and go onto the sand. Even then he wanted to sit on a log so that the small crabs couldn't get him. I am not scared of small crabs. Scruffy and I worked out a way to clobber them on our last Fiji trip; you can find photos of that in earlier posts. Big ones still scare me though. The tide was way out when this photo was taken. You can see by the ripple marks in the sand that the water comes almost to the log at high tide. I figured that if we stayed there long enough we would get to swim, but no luck with Mum on watch. I reckon that by the time we go the beach again, Blu will be ready to build sandcastles with Scruff, Milky and I. If you look carefully, you can see an island on the horizon. That is South Solitary Island and it has a lighthouse on it, more about that later.

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Sunday, September 04, 2011

 

Bears at the Beach

Blu hadn't been close to a beach before our last trip. He had seen beaches at a distance, but had no idea how much fun they could be. Well, one of the places we stayed at was Emerald Beach, just north of Coffs Harbour. This is a small town with a great beach for surfers and families. There are usually big waves for surfers at the end near the headland, and calmer water for kids further down the beach. I figured it was time for Blu to get down onto the beach. The problem was that he was scared of waves and crabs and wouldn't go there. So, I sat with him in a tree near the beach and we watched the surfers and kids having fun, and after a while I managed to get him onto the sand. I was about to get him into the water when Nemesis (AKA Mum) arrived and read the riot act about small bears and water. Maybe some day I will manage to get into the ocean.

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If Only.....

If only Scruffy and I were bigger, we could have had great fun with this car. We found it during our last trip to the Gold Coast. There was a "Fashion, Food & Fast Cars" day on the avenue where we went for lunch. One of the cars was this little beauty. I am not sure just what sort of car it is, other than a race car. It is too small for F.1 and looks a bit different to an Indycar, but it sure looks fast. The owner was happy to let the Oldies look all over it, so naturally Scruff and I did too. There must be a standard size for drivers of these cars, Dad is too big around the middle to fit into the cockpit, and Scruff and I are too small to see out when we sit in there. If we tried to ride where we are sitting in the photo, we would be sucked into the big intake just above our heads. That leaves Mum, and at least she is speedway trained, so maybe she would be the best one of us to take the car for a run. The owner wasn't going to let any of us drive it anyway, but I would love to go for a run in a car like this. I will post more pix of some of the cars that lined Tedder Avenue that day, later on.

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