Just checking...

... that this space still works.  This time in 4 weeks I will be in the lounge at Melbourne airport waiting for a plane to Singapore, then I wait for a plane to Frankfurt, then I think I may have to rush to catch my plane to Malta. 

Manly - last few days

 On Sunday I walked around the harbour  along the Manly to Spit Bridge walk. In 2016 I did this walk,  about 10km from the Spit Bridge to Manly. Previously I had walked the same walk with my mother  and maybe father and some of my school aged ( i think) kids . This time I only planned on walking about 4 km  and  then returning to Manly. I got as far as Forty Baskets  beach. Apparently in 1885 a catch of 40 baskets of fish was sent to a contingent of Sudanese troops at  north Head quarantine station  from this beach. Hence the name.

Yesterday I walked in the opposite direction towards Little Manly beach, then on, up and down, up and down till I got to Collins Flat Beach. This is just inside the Sydney Harbour Foreshore National Park.  I was not far from North Head. 

Shortly my cousin arrives. She will spend the night here then  I go with her to her  home in Katoomba for a few days.

Manly

I want to have a record of the places i have been for the 2 weeks I will have been in Manly. 

For the 3 days Noel was here with me  we....

    Walked to Little Manly and then to the nearby park where there is information about and remains of a wharf where boats with coal were unloaded and the coal was turned into gas. And return through different streets with an interesting variety of housing.

   Walked to Fairlight beach

   Went to the Anzac Day service

    Pottered around the botanic gardens

For the rest of the time ....

    I have caught up with 3 friends and enjoyed 3 different but all delicious meals

   Walked to Shelley Beach, then up onto the plateau and walked along mostly bush tracks to North Head. Spectacular view. 

    Walked north along the coast to North Curl Curl stopping at rest spots, views etc.

    On the day I was meeting a friend at CQ I went into CQ early and walked to Barangaroo and caught the metro 1 stop to martin place.  The new underground  station was fascinating. Very light and open. You could stand at the bottom and see escalators above you. 

   Yesterday I had an interesting day. I wondered how many of the 10 ferry lines could i go on comfortably in 1 day. ( F1, F2, F6, F5 and F10)

Leg 1  F1 Manly to Circular Quay

Leg 2   F2 CQ to Taronga zoo ferry terminal

Leg 3  walk to Mosman Bay Ferry Terminal

Leg 4  F6 Mosman bay to CQ

Leg 5  F5 CQ to Neutral bay,  coffee and cake at wharf cafe

Leg 6  F5 neutral bay to CQ

Leg 7  F4 CQ to Pyrmont bay

Leg  8  walk to blackwater Bay Ferry terminal stopping at fish markets for lunch

Leg 9 F10 Blackwater Bay to Barangaroo,.  Tiny ferry looking like a bathtub with a lid

Leg 10 walk from Barangaroo  to CQ

Leg 11 F1 CQ to Manly . This maybe counts because it was the fast ferry and i started the day on the slow ferry.

I left Manly at about 8.30 and got back at 4pm. A day well spent. Lots of sitting, but I also walked a total of a bit over 11km.

 Today is a day of rest.

Wedneday in Botanic Gardens and home Thursday

 On Wednesday I did not venture far from my hotel , only as far as the Botanic gardens where I  pottered around some more and sat for a while.  I walked along some different roads. 

My return home was uneventful and my home was as I left it. 

Now to think and plan for my next trip. Maybe Florence?

Tuesday, more beach walking

Tuesday was a longish day. I walked to Prahan markets, but the shop I wanted was closed, so I caught the train to Elsternwick, as planned. There is a shop that only sells gluten free stuff that I tried to visit a week or 2 ago but it was closed. It was open, so I had a large piece of pizza and a blueberry muffin( the lightest gf muffin I have ever had) for breakfast . This was instead of a croissant. The owner told me to come back in a month and they would have gf croissants. They almost had the recipe and ingredients right. We had an interesting  conversation.

Next I walked west towards Elwood and the water and where I had stopped walking  south from St kilda on a previous day. Then I walked south along a path . It was a lovely walk in nice weather for a change, not very windy like it has been.   Water on my right and huge houses or parks on my left. The path petered out at the bathing boxes at Brighton but luckily the tide was going out so there was hard sand to walk along.  Then more path till I stopped at Brighton Beach where there is a train station close to the coast. And luckily close to a large pub where I had a lateish,  large but average lunch.. I caught the train back and stopped at Prahan and luckily the shop I wanted was open. I was a bit tired walking back to my apartment.  

Monday Fitzroy again

On Monday I went into the city for coffee at  a place i had been recomended. Another very small space into which not many people could squeeze, but I managed to. Then I walked a circuitous  route through the edge of East Melbourne to a different  part of Fitzroy, a very eclectic mix of housing, shops, cafes,bars . One of the streets I walked along was  the street that divides Fitzroy and Collingwood. I had an interesting conversation with a local man sitting on a bench with his dog. He reckoned there was a distinct difference in people between the 2 suburbs .  

I walked back to the city and spent a long time in Lincraft talking to a lady who was also buying embroidery threads. She was a textile artist and had stuff in an exhibition. Then back here.

Narre Warren North, SE of Melbourne

I usually quite like sitting in trains, despite my whinge about yesterday. I can switch most of my brain off. Today was a good day. Several trains and a bus to visit Noel's  delightful great granddaughter and her dads. She is delightful, growing fast, just started to walk. Then back here again.

Williamstown Saturday

I had a lovely day walking in   Williamstown. Getting there was a bit fraught. I had to change twice, despite the ladyin the train over the loudspeakers saying the train was all stops to Williamstown.  She was not having a good day because on one of the 3 trains she told us that the connecting train would leave from a different platform to the one that it left from. I walked from the station to the  beach that looks southwards, then around from there eastwards, then northwards along the coast to newport and train home. I stopped for food and drink at various places. One of the highlights was sitting on a stone wall on a pier eating 6 oysters from a fisherman's stall watching the boats around me and the contrast. There was a small very heavy duty tugboat- like fishing vessel near a beautiful, sleek racing yacht having its hull cleaned.

Wed Fitzroy, Thur Ivanhoe, Fri Prahan

I have a little book of things to do in Melbourne and in it there is a walk around Fitzroy, describing the history and style of some of the buildings. So that was the focus for Wednesday morning. It was most enjoyable, despite the rain, though my book did need careful drying out. I had a nice lunch at a small place serving Columbian food which was most enjoyable. There were corn based pancake like things or rice based dishes Lots of choice.

Yesterday late morning I left  here to catch 2 trains and then walk, to  the home of a cousin of John's who I haven't seen for 15 years. She has very similar aged kids and granddads and interests as me. We got on very well. It was lovely to catch up with her.

Today i have done nothing much, other than walk around more streets that I haven't walked on before in Prahan, just south of here.

Tuesday's Lowlight Melbourne Central

This mornings aim was to walk along Lygon St in Carlton and see an exhibition in the Melbourne uni. I got out of the train, as planned at Melbourne Central station. I tried to follow the signs to a road but I ended up in another noisy, flashy signs , too many people  etc etc shopping centre /mall/ emporium/?whatever. I got out, but it was the days lowlight. 

I enjoyed wandering up Lygon Street, but at 10 am I was a bit early.  But there was an open interesting cafe, more Greek than Italian, that was OK.  Then I went west to the edge of the Melbourne Uni campus. The  Potter Museum of Art has a new exhibition on  called 65,000 years : A short History of Australian Art. I really enjoyed the exhibition, though didnot take in all 400 works. It was well arranged. 

Monday

This morning I caught a tram to Balaclava to go to a cafe for breakfast that I had read about. It is called All things being Equal , a not-for-profit  cafe run to give people with disabilities  opportunities.  Then I caught a tram in the direction of a wool shop in Glen Iris. It was large and I enjoyed pottering, but they didnot have what I was looking for.. After a coffee in a nice Cafe I caught a tram back in the direction of south Yarra, where I am staying, but got off about 5 km before and walked through a large part of Toorak. I was getting a bit tired of nice leafy streets, 2 story big  houses , 6ft high fences almost on the footpath, when I came across a different place. I could see over the fence that there were a lot of colourful bright quirky statues in the front yard.  Most of the houses I  had  passed had a gate in the front wall, with letter box slot , intercom, key pad, notice saying No advertising or similar. The quirky statue house had 2 different signs on the gate next to the letter slot and intercom/keypad. One said "Nevermind the Dog, beware of the owner", the other " Insane asylum, please enter with caution".  I brightened up considerably. 2 streets later the houses were much smaller.

Sunday, dodging protestors

It was my intention to do a few things in the city, yesterday, Sunday.  On my way in I stopped for a while in the botanic Gardens, then thought I would get a tram for a few stops. The route was changed because of protests. It was a bit hard to understand the announcements about what streets were affected because I donot yet have a mental map  of where the streets are in relation to each other.  My first stop was to a huge bookshop Readings. The trouble is it was inside a huge mall  of brightly lit shops and no clear pattern of the aisles.. They were not laid out in a rectangular grid of 90 degrees.  I  followed directions from one of those helpful boards, trying to remember the way .  But when I left Readings, I could not remember  the way out.  Ah well, at least I can still speak to ask for directions.

The next place I was heading for was past the library, but as I approached the shop I saw a line of about 20 police and a whole lot of people chanting something unintelligible behind them, so I turned right,  but not long after came across another group of police with protesters behind them. So I turned another corner and after a few streets came across a third similar group. Who started moving towards me. I scuttled down a different street, along with a few locals.  I went into the museum of the moving image and was buying some food at a kiosk thing when a group went past. The noise the protestors were making was huge.     I have just re read what I have written. I definitely came across 3 separate groups but I cannot have  turned a right angle each time. The 1st and 3rd group were aligned the same way. Never mind, you get the drift.

In the evening I went to a choral evensong service at the Anglican Church a few blocks away from me. They have evensong ( an Anglican service but no sermon and no communion) every Sunday, but the 3rd Sunday has an augmented choir. There were about 25 choristers. Beautiful music in a lovely old church.

Saturday West Footscray

I have never been to Footscray. Why go there you might well ask? I read about a bookshop on the edge of West Footscray that had a coffee machine and  lots of community events. Why not visit? The bookshop and the people were all lovely. And the coffee was good.  It was full, so they must have been providing a good service.   I had taken the train there and walked over 1km I think . After my coffee and pottering amongst the bookshelves,  I got the train back to Footscray but after walking for about 5 minutes in what I thought looked the direction of the main shops , I decided to give up . I was not comfortable in the surroundings.

 I chatted  to a lady going to the Caulfield Cup on the train. Seeing the people dressed for the races on the train reminded me of my first trip to New York. I got the train from the Lincoln Centre back to my apartment about 4 or 5 stops north along Broadway. 11.30 pm, there were musicians busking on the platform playing tunes from the opera i had just been to,. The train was packed with very well dressed people. I had to stand, along with many others. My nose was almost in a lady's fur coat.

Prahan and Windsor

Today was an easy day with not too much walking..Only 7km.  I walked south along Chapel Street through Prahan to Windsor. Prahan looks like it was quite a wealthy suburb in the late 1800s.,There are quite a few quite opulent buildings of that era in the main street. I had been told that Windsor was a trendy ish place with nice cafes. My informant either is out of date or keeps different hours to me. Probably both. There was only 1 cafe open at 7.15 , but the coffee was good . It was quite busy. There were quite a few empty shops. I zig zagged my way back along  back streets.  i stopped at the Prahan markets for a look.  In quite a few places over the last 3 weeks I have seen interesting little gardens or kids play areas built in little pockets of land near railway lines. Previously unused i guess.