Sweet Wayfaring

We've reached our destination. I picked it on the Internet because it was near Tilba and the pictures looked nice. But it turns out to be 10kms from the nearest town Bermagui, on a lake not the beach, it's a big campsite full of neat relocatable homes with nobody at home, the few non-permanent campsites are empty. With nowhere to go, nobody to talk to, no waves to look at and Pelicans landing the most exciting thing happening around here, I'm worried ... we are booked in for a week. Over at Ann's blog recently there was a discussion about whether isolation and having nothing to do was relaxing or not.  I've got the Internet, my camera and a couple of books ... we should be fine.

Isn't it pretty.  I love timber buildings like this and the summer cottage gardens are a delight.

I learnt about Tilba from blog friends so added it to my list of places to visit one day.  This was the day.  It is an historic town with its streetscape of Victorian timber buildings preserved.  Its heyday was during the gold era, then moving onto dairy and today is a quaint tourist town. The diary industry lives on in delicious Tilba Cheese but it is Tilba in brand only, after takeover by an international food giant it is now made in a factory in Melbourne!

To the memory of Robert Currans Native of County Down Ireland who departed this life November 13 1863 Aged 72 Years. Robert Currans arrived at Geelong in the 1850s with his wife Agnes and the youngest daughter Rachel (age 17).  They had other children who had already emigrated and were living near Moruya so Robert and Agnes moved up that way.  Rachel did not accompany them as she married soon after their arrival. With her husband she followed the Victorian gold fields eventually reaching Omeo and later moving up into NSW.  When the family moved to NSW they left in Omeo their eldest daughter Anne (age 16) who had recently married.  Anne and her husband went on to have 14 children in Omeo one of whom was my grandfather. I have since discovered that my great-great-great grandmother Agnes is also buried in Moruya cemetery. She outlived her husband by 20 years dying in 1882 at the ripe old age of 92.

Taphophile is a new 'big word' I learnt over on Julie's blog .  Apparently it's someone interested in graveyards and cemeteries.  So we are doing a little bit of taphophilia at Moruya cemetery looking for an ancestor. This old part was as picturesque summer meadow with Queen Annes Lace and dandelions. Julie has set up a new meme  Taphophile Tragics visit there for more graveyard and cemetery images.  I'll tell you about the ancestor tomorrow.

We continued on from Braidwood to the South Coast ... putting down anchor for the night at Bateman's Bay ... in the caravan park not in one of these house boats.  Mmmm, the weather's not looking great for a beach holiday.

I wish you all a very happy and blessed Christmas and a wonderful day with family and friends.

Winam was keen to see more of Braidwood so here are some extra images before we move on. This is a heritage town.  Started in the 1840s as a sheep raising area aided by many convicts, had its time doing gold right up to 1910, but by the 1920s it was a rural centre but nonetheless a sleepy hollow. The fortunate result was that it remained quite intact as a type of time capsule. Now it does tourism as well as continuing to serve the local rural community. I bet is is a while since they had enough priests to fill St Bede's Presbytery. Like all country towns, the already dwindling population got knocked about quite a bit from the wars.  I particularly like the war memorials with a marble soldier on the top ... perhaps because there was one of them in my own home town.

Braidwood is pretty town with masses of roses tumbling over old walls and fences.

Royal Mail Hotel, Braidwood As you know I always have my eye out for Royal Hotels, I found one here. Apparently it was the Royal Hotel but was renamed the Royal Mail Hotel for the filming of the 1970s film of Ned Kelly.  This is a heritage town, perfect for a film set.

I'm glad I was looking now or I would have missed this gem on the way into the town of Braidwood.  The one below was in the same side yard. What a great trio.

The reason why I had looked up was the gold-green glory of this lovely avenue of trees going into the town of Braidwood.

At work they are fond of saying "work is an activity not a location". Well taking this mantra on for fact we embarked on a trip early with me working on my laptop in the car. Mobile broadband and smartphones are wonderous thing but after sending about my 100th email for the day and answering yet another phone call I looked out the window and realised that hundreds of kilometres of beautiful countryside had rolled by.  I slammed my laptop shut ... I would finish my day's work in the evening.

We are back down by the lake overlooking where there is the rather nice sculpture showing Cook's journey in the Endeavour. That is the end of this tour and tomorrow we go wayfaring somewhere new.

I then made a beeline to the amenities to de-goop my jeans.  The artwork on the mens amused me.

After getting out of the goop I had to get the close up of the swan.

I was stalking the swans and not looking at my feet.  Suddenly I found them slipping away from under me and the next minute sitting in the middle of these sticky globules.  There were heaps of them ... what are they?

I was quite excited to find this flock of swans grazing on the lawn. I decided to sneak up on them to get a better shot.

I really like the orderly plantings of exotic trees in the garden.  So tell me, why do I find is so ludicrous when I see the neat rows of native eucalypts masquerading as natural forest elsewhere in Canberra?

The annual Floriade exhibition is held in Commonwealth Park -- it is a spectacular display of tulips, daffodils and other cold climate spring flowers.  A month of two on and this is how it looks.

Skirting this part of the lake is Commonwealth Park, a rather lovely park with expanses of green lawn and mature trees.  I like this part Canberra.

The lakes edge is all about landmarks. Here you can see the Carillon, a gift from the British Government.  Kings Avenue bridge is also in the shot.

Knowing I was running out of shots to keep the blog going I decided to do a quick photo shoot down by the lake before continuing my day's work. This shows Black Mountain and Black Mountain tower. When I lived in Canberra we watched that tower go up bit by bit over many months.  I think the end result is quite attractive and a landmark today. They were having the same nasty cold weather as we've been having lately.

It seems like ages since I got a shot of a Royal Hotel so we took the detour to Bungendore to get a shot of this one. But I can't add it to the gallery, Julie has already contributed it. Royal Hotel Bungendore So undaunted we continued on through Queanbeyan to collect this shot. Royal Hotel Queanbeyan

I haven't been anywhere interesting so am dragging the bottom of the barrel somewhat between now and the New Year when I hope to do some real Wayfaring.  We are on our way to Canberra. The Federal Highway runs beside Lake George which as you can see is not much of a lake at the moment. While most lakes are now full or filling since the drought as broken, Lake George follows its own tune. Sometimes this picnic spot has beautiful water views but it's not a common occurrence. I remember it was quite full when I first went to live in Canberra in the 1970s and again in the late 1980s.  At the moment there are some parts with water but it looks like will be quite a while before we see water lapping the shores.

We've reached the end of the walk. At least the climb out is not as steep as most mountain walks.

I've not seen this before.  It's interesting what you see when you look about.

This is a tree I think we don't see in the mountains. It was different enough to attract my attention. Sydney Red Gum - Angophora costata

Knowing you would all be flowered out from my recent Blue Mountains walks I've been holding off showing you any but as always I was paying close attention to the them.  All of these flowers are seen in the Mountains too. Small Flannel Flower Rice Flower Grevillia Not sure Dianella x Everlasting Daisies

And there are people doing the hard work on bush care to stem the encroachment of civilisation where pollution and garden plants muscle out the bush.

Yep there are plenty of weedy bits. I posted this one because I think thistles are so pretty.

Being so close to the city the river banks are heavily infested with vines and garden escapees. I think that is privet in flower by the water. Nonetheless it is lovely down by the waterside.

Down by the river we see the ducks and water hens. Which has got me wondering ... what do water roosters look like?

And here is one of those noisy birds. Isn't it simply stunning. We don't see these in the mountains. Rainbow Lorikeet