Hi, it is Monday, the 4th of August 2014, a bit after 7 am.
I just looked up the temperatures for Sydney. It says it is there 7 C at present but it feels like only 5 C which I believe equals 40 F. Here where I am the temperatures are similar to Sydney. In Canberra, which is more inland, the temperatures during night time did go down to below freezing point for the last few days.
It has not rained much the last few weeks. I looks like our fire season starts early this year. This is what out Rural Fire Service states:
“Across NSW there are more than 700 #NSWRFS firefighters working on 84 bush and grass fires. …”
Apparently it burns only in some northern parts of New South Wales at the moment. (NSW is a huge area, about the size of the whole of Germany!) Still, we have to be prepared with warmer weather coming up and not much rain, there is definitely going to be increased risk of bush fires in the coming months or even weeks.
It feels strange to have to think of bush fires when we have such a tremendous cold spell right now!
This is “Paulchen”, our fourteen year old car. In 2001, when Peter’s sister Ilse stayed with us for three months and “Paulchen” was still fairly new, Ilse lovingly called the car “Paulchen” . Whenever we tried to make a sly remark about the car, she would not tolerate it. She always urged us not to say anything bad about “Paulchen”. Apart from a few little dents, “Paulchen” is still okay, good for a drive in our surrounds.
I think we reached Berry on Saturday at around 11am. We were lucky to find a parking spot straight away right in front of the French Bakery Restaurant.
Another view of our parking spot. To the right we noticed a beautiful cottageWe thought this cottage looks lovely.The Restaurant is next to the cute little cottage.
The restaurant was originally a barn. It was cuddly warm with a heater switched on.
Soon our coffee was served in big cups. The pram in the background was a joy to watch. It kept bouncing like a cradle!
And yes we had Eggs Florentine and Eggs Benedict on sourdough bread with hollandaise sauce.
The couple with the baby left the restaurant about the same time we did.
I took a picture of Peter before sitting in the car.This picture is taken through the wet windscreen of the car.There must have been a little bit of drizzle while we had been sitting in the restaurant.
After our beautiful meal we felt energised to go for a walk through town. The restaurant had been filling up while we were in there. We noticed people had to queue up for seats and parking spots in the street might soon be getting scarce. I urged Peter to drive to the other end of town where we could probably find a parking spot not too far away from the street where all the shops are. We actually were able to park the car somewhere else without any problem. Our walk along the shops could begin!
This is enough window shopping for today. There are still more pictures to come in my next post!
Berry is a small Australian town in the Shoalhaven region of the NSW South Coast in the state of New South Wales, located 145 km (90 mi) south of the state capital, Sydney.
History
The indigenous people of the area were the Wodi Wodi people. In the 1810s, George William Evans, Government Surveyor, reported on the Berry district as a possible settlement and on the good stands of red cedar. Subsequently, itinerant timber cutters visited to cut and send cedar to Sydney.
Alexander Berry, with his business partner Edward Wollstonecraft, pioneered European settlement in the Shoalhaven region in 1822. The locality was known as Broughton Creek from its beginning in 1825 as a private town and part of a large rural grant holding called “Coolangatta”. The name was changed to Berry in 1889, following the death of David Berry, Alexander’s brother, to honour the Berry family.
The township of Berry lies on the South Coast Railway, and on the Princes Highway (Highway 1) between Nowra and Kiama. For much of its early history the town depended on timber cutting and dairy farming, with a tannery and boat building also present, but today, Berry thrives on tourism, with many souvenir shops, art galleries, antiques and collectibles shops, cafes, restaurants, and hotels. A local public hospital bequeathed by the Berry family, the David Berry Hospital, now serves as a rehabilitation hospital and palliative care hospice.
All this is taken from the Wikipedia. To find out more, please look here:
I took yesterday a lot of pictures in Berry. Here are just a few of these:
At the Berry Hotel Lodgers are welcome.
ALPACA BURGERS are advertised at the Berry Hotel.
Opposite the Hotel in Queen Street is an Old Post Office Building. It is from 1886.
There are ‘Posthouse Rooms’ in the old Post Office Building as well as a Restaurant called LEAF.
LEAF stands for “Love Eating Asian Food”. They tell their customers the following:
“It’s our pleasure to serve fresh, healthy and delicious Thai-Vietnamese dishes to you!
Please come visit us to enjoy your lunch and dinner.
With Love
From LEAF
P.S. Fully licensed. BYO (Wine only)”
Some of the Outside Sitting Area of the LEAF Restaurant.This is in commemoration of Alexander Berry who lived from 1781 – 1873.
Next to the Alexander Berry monument is a little park where I took some pictures of Peter.
We stayed at Bulli Beach for two nights only, namely Friday night and Saturday night. Sunday morning we went back home again. On Sunday morning it was a bit cloudy at first. We were able to take lots of pictures of the sun rising. Here are some of them.
I just discovered the above new item in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Some areas in NSW experienced the worst bushfires last Thursday when temperatures reached the high thirties (Celsius) with very strong erratic extremely hot winds. 208 houses have been destroyed so far. The entire Blue Mountains Area is still in danger.
So the Premier says ” to brace for the possibility of mass evacuations in coming days amid dire weather forecasts.”
This warning applies to residents across the state of NSW. I think a lot of people tend to think it is not going to effect them unless they live right next to the bush. However to be honest under these dire weather conditions a fire could turn up anywhere within a very short time. So I think the Premier is right to give people a warning like this. For sure it is much better to be prepared than to be sorry later on.
Here now is a message from the Queen:
“2:58pm: Her Majesty The Queen has just sent a message on the bushfire situation here. She’s expressed great admiration for the work of fire fighters.
“I would like to convey my heartfelt sympathy to all those who have been affected by the devastating bushfires across New South Wales.
“My thoughts are with the many people who have lost their homes or livelihoods in the fires, and I have great admiration for the fire fighters, volunteers and emergency services officers who are working tirelessly to contain the situation.”
On Tuesday, the 9th of April 2013, we picked up a rental car in Wollongong. Our first stop was for a cup of coffee at Austinmer Beach.
Here we had coffee right opposite the beach.This is Peter at Austinmer BeachThere’s a Swimming Pool at Austinmer Beach.I found a seat to sit down and relax.And here I am being photographed with a happy young woman from China .
This young woman had come with a lot of other Chinese people on a tourist bus that stopped near the beach just for a few minutes. This friendly young woman asked Peter to take some pictures of her. And she also wanted to be photographed together with me! After this interlude we drove further up north. There is this little beach that we can always see from the train on the way to Sydney. We stopped briefly near that little beach. Then we drove up to Bald Hill where we could see this little beach from the top and we could also see the Sea Cliff Bridge.
This is near that little beach where we had just stopped the car.
From Bald Hill we had a great look at the little beach.The Sea Cliff Bridge as seen from Bald Hill
On that Tuesday we also went from Bald Hill up the escarpment to Bulli Lookout where we had something to eat at the Cliffhanger Cafe. All these places are in our area. .
We had come from Gundagai along the Hume Highway. After a little while we turned into Sturt Highway where we went past Wagga Wagga. Then we reached Narrandera for our overnight stop. The next morning we were on our way along Sturt Highway towards the town of Hay. Before we left Narrandera we had to make sure that we ended on the right Highway, for we noticed all of a sudden that our motel had actually been on the Newell Highway and not on the Sturt Highway. There was a beutifully situated Information Centre on our way out where we found some toilets or should I say some facilities?
Arriving in the town of Hay.This building in Hay is still being occupied by a bank as far a we could tell.It was such a beautiful morning with a clear blue sky. We sat outside this shop were we were being served a nice cup of tea..
Above the shop counter it said: “Bringing the tastes of an outback experience to you.” So this was an outback experience. They also wanted us to enjoy
a long paddock experience whatever this is!
We thought this balustrade looked magnificent.Just a street scene
And here some displays in a shop window:
So it looks like that Hay is just a few years older than NARRANDERA!
Before we left Hay we had some gelato in a place that was crowded with seniors. It looks like a lot of retirees live in Hay. They told us more and more come because properties are still very affordable if you compare it with what you have to fork out for a place in a coastal town. They have just opened a hospital in Hay that is especially geared towards the needs of elderly people. But if you need an operation you have to be transferred to another town. This hospital in Hay doesn’t cater for operations.
We were in Narrandera on the 10th of April. So we missed out on the big celebrations. However it was quite interesting to have a look at this 150 year old outback New South Wales town where we stayed overnight in a motel.
This bakery opened at 7 in the morning. We had a lovely breakfast there.These stood for sale in front the Chemist Shop.This Toy Shop reminds me of old Times.
This is the motel where we stayed for one night.
I guess the motel has been named after this monstrous tree.Now, these roots tell you something about the size of the tree.Peter ponders this section where obviously a branch was cut off that had been obstructing the neighbour’s drive-way.
This motel is situated right at Newell Highway. Till 2 am there was a constant stream of trucks going along this highway. I would wake every couple of hours as I heard the roar of the trucks. But I always went straight away back to sleep because I still was very tired.
When I woke at 4 am there were no more trucks. But I had enough rested by then. Peter had even woken up before me and had taken this picture:
Peter claimed he had never heard any trucks. So he slept well from about 9 pm to 4 am. After a good breakfast soon after 7 am at the NARRANDERA BAKERY we were on our way again heading towards the town of HAY.
The Dog on the Tuckerbox is an Australian historical monument and tourist attraction, located at Snake Gully, five miles (8 km) from Gundagai, New South Wales.
After our breakfast stop at Moss Vale ‘The Dog on the Tuckerbox’ five miles from Gundagai was our next stop.
At this FRESH FOOD CAFE we bought some local produce, for instance prune jam and honey.Along the Hume Highway we had seen a few windmills.
We hired a car in Wollongong for a period of twelve days. The first day Peter took the car for a test drive along the coast North of Wollongong.
Via the Sea Cliff Bridge we went as far as Bald Hill.
The hang gliding hadn’t started yet on that day. There were already signs out that it would start soon.
From here you can see where we had come up along the Sea Cliff Bridge. We also had a brief stop near that little beach.
Along here you can walk to that little beach. We had stopped our car nearby.
We soon felt hungry and wanted to go some where for lunch. We actually did find a very nice place at the top of the escarpment where we had a lovely meal. We also took heaps of pictures from up there. I am going to publish some of these in my next post.
AuntyUta 