Point Lonsdale, good bye

Friday was our last full day in Point Lonsdale. What to do? Sister has lived there for about 14 years. We've seen and experienced it all.

Portarlington is nice. We will visit there and as I set off I thought we should drive via Drysdale. Bone Doctor attends there I don't know how often to treat sports medicine patients. Drysdale is also the Bellarine Railway terminus. 

For once R didn't say he wasn't interested in history as I theorised about how people used to travel to the Bellarine Peninsula by steamer ferries for holidays. I think the train line opening from Melbourne to Queenscliff killed off the steamer ferries. If there wasn't a train change at Geelong, I expect it would have taken around 90 minutes, which would be very competitive with ferries.  

The train to Queenscliff didn't close down until 1975, when many country train lines closed in our state, without a Beeching report. Part of the railway track was turned into a cycling trail and some was retained where the tourist railway runs, from Drysdale to Queenscliff. The Q Train experiences sound great. A train at Drysdale was loading for a lunch run and the attractive and friendly young train platform gate attendant welcomed us to platform for 'a look'. Many had already boarded and even before noon, they were getting stuck into to the wine. They were determined to get their money's worth. R suggested we should take the trip at some point in the future. No children were visible.

We had a nice brunch at a Portarlington cafe, went to a local supermarket for a couple of things and headed back to Sister's. 

Dinner was at the nice enough at the Ocean Grove Bowling Club, a recommendation by Sister. The dining area was booked out so we had a meal in the public bar. 

The grape vine Triffids are coming. It's time to go home, as we did the next day. 

How's your Latin? Nautis must mean sea.

Drysdale was larger than I remembered. All along the main street were a mix of elms or plane trees, and flowering gum trees, in full flower as we drove past. They looked marvellous. 

Lazy cloud post

When a regular blogger has nothing prepared or written, they should have a folder of good clouds phots to resort to. The sun sets over Port Phillip.

Bits #97

We went into town today. Our often place to go, the QV shopping centre is undergoing renovations with the promise of a fabulous new food court, except being a bit on the posh side, they don't call it that. It isn't a great place to be at the moment, with hoardings everywhere.

Instead we visited a nice cafe at the corner of Bourke Street and Hardware Lane. Its chicken and coleslaw sliders are delicious and such good coffee. 

Our reason for to visit town was to buy some sticky tape for the dispenser (we used to call it Durex but that eventually led to confusion) and a marker pen for our shopping list whiteboard. R decided we needed  a pen colour change to brighten up our lives, so we bought a blue pen to replace the black one. My writing is distinguishable and you can see the new blue pen's work. 

Our small desk top calculator is about 25 years old. It is solar powered and battery powered, but it has never seen sunlight and never needed the battery replaced. $12 for a smart new one, why not. We can afford that. 

Look R, I proclaimed about our new calculator. It has a back button so if you type $65 and you meant $66, you can just press the back key to delete the last number. That is a useful feature. As I placed the old calculator where e-waste is stored until disposal, I noticed there was a back arrow on the old model, but we'd never noticed. Sadly when I do household expenditure sums on the new calculator, it goes into the negative, just like the old one. It gives me no different numbers. No tech improvement at all.

 

Yesterday there was a terrible tram crash in our street when a tip truck illegally tried to make a U turn in front of a tram. The tram hit the truck and derailed. There were long delays, with trams rerouted. The truck's fuel tank must have been punctured as I could smell diesel as we passed by the location today. 

I was rather pleased to see at the big blue office supply shop a recycling wall, with one opening for old pens. I have saved our old marker pen to deposit in the future. 

We were going to war about future holidays. I am not cruising anywhere on a ship unless very local discussing a future holiday and I suggested R look at the video by Canadian Mike Downie and his partner taking a first class flat bed train trip from Brisbane to Cairns in our state of Queensland. Twenty five hours and it looked pretty good. R is interested. One problem is the train arrives in Cairns at around 8am and Australian hotel check in time is not until 2pm. I haven't looked at the trip in detail yet. Very early days of planning but it would be nice to be away from home in warmer climes for our coldest winter months, maybe a four week Queensland holiday.

Lordy, it is February. How did that happen.

Good news story, kind of

This was a major headline media story because it is a very unusual thing to happen.

Benjamin Phikhohpoom (by his name I guess he is of Thai heritage) was abducted in a well to do area while walking home from a very good school in the local area of Caulfield in the greater area of Glen Eira. This is dominantly a Jewish area. Is that relevant? Maybe. But I can't see Benjamin as being a target by hatred of Jews.

Media informs me that the fifteen year old lad was pulled into a car by three teenagers who demanded his phone and personal belongings. He was stabbed, thrown out of the car and dragged for 150 metres and then, run over. 

He spent a long time in a coma but eventually recovered but not quite to the full extent. The television news subtitled his speech last night. But I could understand him easily. 

He is back at school, albeit part time. 

Photo from the Herald Sun.

What a marvellous country Australia is, clean, green, neat and safe.

From the English Daily Mail.

The three teenagers who allegedly carried out the attack were arrested and charged following the incident. 

All three have been granted bail and are set to face a children's court at a later date.

One of the alleged offenders, a 14-year-old boy, faces 70 charges relating to several armed robberies and multiple counts of theft. 

The reasonable part of my brain says if convicted, the perpetrators should serve a gaol sentence, understand the gravity of what they did and undergo rehabilitation before being released back into society.

The emotional part of my brain says why attack an innocent kid on his way home from school? Lock the fuckers up and throw away key for these wasters of society.

It will be interesting to see what the courts decide and you can bet the sentences will be mild.  

Point Lonsdale and experiencing shocking wind

C'mon lovey. We've got a train to catch. 

We had a bite to eat and coffee in Queenscliff and headed down the hill to the train station. The steam train wasn't operating this day, so the carriages were pulled by a diesel powered locomotive. We've taken the trip before and R enjoyed it. This time he made it plain he did not, mostly because the train was chockers with families and many children. The train doesn't run daily and it was school holidays, so it was to be expected to be busy. "Don't ever ask me to do that again", was his summary. 

There are some nice views along the way.

The engine at Lakers Siding.

It was terribly windy that day. As R rested in the afternoon, I took myself and Coco off in the car for a beach walk. I've seen rougher seas at Point Lonsdale Beach but they were unusual. The photos don't tell how rough the sea was.

Dinner was at the Queenscliff Brewhouse. In the outdoor area I found this interesting. I had a lovely huge bowl of mussels in a nice sauce with a nice bread.

Monday Mural

I am joining in with Sami and others for Monday Mural. 

Artist Lushsux is quite a prolific muralist. You can read a bit about him here and see some of his work here.

It's a pity about the graffiti over this work of his. 

Im Peach him

I like.

I would never call anyone ugly, unless I judged them as uglier on the inside than there obvious external old and plain visage. What a shocking and despicable human being. I bet he would kick dogs out of his way.

To black people in the US, no matter the obstacles put in your way, please get out there on election day and vote 'correctly'. 

Point Lonsdale and a curry

OMG, on the Wednesday did it rain in the morning! As happened at Christmas, there was a moat at the front door but not quite as large and we could step over it. We drove to Barwon Heads and after eventually finding a parking space, we walked up and down the main drag and back near we parked the car, we found a cafe that has dry outdoor seating and each f us had a monster sausage roll, that I couldn't finish, and coffee. 

There was a lookout at Barwon Heads but we quickly remembered we had been there before, the last time with Mother. On the way home we found some really nice lookout points in Ocean Grove. It was nice sitting and gazing out to sea and admiring some very nice looking housing above. 

I had a fancy for Indian food and it was only 13 minutes drive from Sister's to Tandoori Lovers in Ocean Grove and we had a very nice meal. It was up a step of stairs, no disabled access, and had nice views and with a monster Norfolk Island Pine at window level. 

Jo's room doesn't really have any bare walls now, and nor does if have any shelf space, the shelves been filled with her various collections.

Fortunately there are sheets of laser lighting? above the grape vine outside so we don't get wet. With so much rain we could almost watch the grass and the vine grow. If you enlarge the photo you can see a couple of vine tendrils and after four days the upper tendril had reached the other side and the lower one had begun wrapping itself around the back of the chair. 

There have been so many shipwrecks in the dangerous waters.

From the look out at Barwon Heads towards Queenscliff.

I wouldn't mind owning one of these Ocean Grove homes.

The view from Tandoori Lovers in Ocean Grove. Good food.

A futile attempt by Coco to rearrange the solid cushion interior.