A masked mystery

Deb and I have just arrived home late from visiting our girls at Yamba.

Having them close is not at all good for the amount of time we spend working on our house.

SO a quick post to answer WIIW, well tricky worked because no one was very close.

Linda G guessed: “A close-up of a lemon peel?”
Well it is the right colour, but it is a rather more animated object.

Indigo suggested: “Looks like foam insulation.”
Alas it is a living creature…

John said: “Your palm”
Closest so far, but it is not a self portrait.

Marcy guessed: “My first thought was insulation, too, or maybe a fuzzy yellow blanket :)”
Unfortunately not, but it is something your son would like.

This is a Spur-winged Plover Vanellus miles (also called a Masked Lapwing) she is puffed up because she is hiding her chicks from me.

Crazy Aussies and WIIW

Well we had three guesses for this week’s WIIW. Two were not really close but the third was soooo close…

Linda G guessed: “I think it's some sort of recessed lighting for your house.”

It is kind of recessed at the moment, and it is for our house, but it isn’t any kind of light fitting. 40%

Marcy guessed: “I was thinking the same thing although I thought it was somewhere else, maybe a public building.”

Unfortunately the public building part of your guess reduces your score 20%

Now to Susan who said: “To me, it looks like light coming up through a hole. Maybe the picture is taken in the attic?”

It is absolutely light coming up through a hole, but a floor below where an attic would be (if we had one). So you earn 80%.

It is a hole in our bathroom floor!

I have graded and tiled the bathroom floor, the two holes are what will be the floor waste in the shower and the drain in the middle of the floor.

The light is coming through because there is not yet any plumbing connected beneath the floor.

The vivid green is not our idea of a wall colour, it is in fact the waterproof membrane that protects the walls from water penetration and will soon be covered.

Now to the Crazy Aussies part of my title.

Why crazy?

Deb and I have moved in to the cottage. 

It is still winter and we have moved in to a house with -
No bathroom
No kitchen
And  perhaps more importantly given the frosty nights…
No ceilings and
No wall linings!

Oh add to that no electricity and no running water.


Why did we move in?

Well as you may be aware we have been boarding at my mum’s house which is a good half hour drive from our cottage on the “back” of the property.
As much as we love my Mum and Stan her husband, Deb and I kind of needed our own space again.
Plus with only working at the day job I will gain at least an hour each day I work on the cottage by not having to go back and forth.

So a quick tour of the house as it is now…
The head of our bed and the back wall of our bedroom. Note the torch and battery lights on the bed head (no electricity remember). We have some pretty good LED battery lights so we don’t sit in the dark when the sun goes down.

Turning the other way we look through our bedroom wall into the living room and through into the front room. I wasn’t kidding when I said we have no wall linings!

As for the kitchen, we have a temporary sink (the original one that I have reconnected to the drain, but the water can is our water supply (refilled from the rainwater tank outside).
The slow combustion stove will provide heat and hot water, but because the plumbing is not connected we can’t light it at the so we don’t damage the water jacket.

The other corner of the kitchen has a table and the gas burner we are using for cooking at the moment.

Human washing is currently done in a basin, and we go to Mum’s for a shower every couple of days.



Stop press: today I got the ceiling in the bathroom and tiled one wall (the wires dangling through the ceiling will ultimately be for light fittings)

Smoke and WIIW

Well it seems I am only managing a couple of posts a week at the moment...sigh.

Life and work have both been very busy.

At the moment we are existing in a cloud of smoke, thick enough that we lose sight of our mountain views.
Why?
The tail end of winter is burn-off season in Northern NSW.

Every year at this time farmers have traditionally burnt their paddocks (we pretty much call any parcel of fenced land a paddock in Oz. Be it 1/2 an acre or 10,000 acres).
The traditional reason is twofold
 - to encourage a flush of "green-pick" for livestock as spring arrives.
- and to reduce the danger of bush-fires in summer.

The practice had fallen off somewhat in recent decades, but following the 2009 Black Saturday Fires it has resurged with a vengeance.

Now my WIIW has nothing at all to do with the previous, so what on Earth do you think this might be.

Winter Day WIIW

Well we staggered home from Brisbane just before midnight the other night.
It is about 5 – 6 hours’ drive from here and we were delayed in getting away.

So back to last week’s  WIIW

There were three guesses.
Susan guessed: “An out-of-focus shot of the side railing on a bridge?”
No, but  your guess is probably the closest. It is a structure similar to an old timber bridge. 60%
Marcy guessed: “or distant raised highway? Or cracks in a wall...? Honestly, nothing comes to me. But I'll be curious to find out!”
Well your shot-gun approach has missed the mark, 30%
Finally Misha guessed: “I also think it's a raised highway.”
I can see why you guessed that, but no 30%

Meet Coffs Harbour Jetty.

I took this on my lunch break last Monday (please forgive the dodgy quality I only had my phone)

Despite it being winter down this way it was a glorious day so I went for a stroll in my break.
My new office is about five minutes’ walk from the vantage point where I took these.

Coffs Harbour is about a 90 minute drive from our mountain hideaway. Not too bad for a bush commute time!

The jetty was completed in 1892 and in the early days formed the main link between Coffs and Sydney.
In the nineteenth century and early twentieth century the only practical means of transport along the NSW coast was by sea. The north coast railway line, between Sydney and Brisbane, was not begun until 1905 and was not finished until 1932 with the building of the bridge over the Clarence River at Grafton.

This piccie from Wikipedia shows the Jetty in its heyday.
The ship the SS Fitzroy did a weekly run between Coffs and Sydney between 1912 and 1921 when it sunk in a storm with the loss of 31 lives of the 35 people aboard.


These days of course people fly between Coffs and Sydney (or drive if they don’t mind 6-8 hours in a car). So the Jetty is nothing but a tourist attraction and a handy place to cast a fishing line.
This last piccie shows  the whole harbour. The modern marina and fishing fleet harbour is on the left side between the mainland and Muttonbird Island.

What is it Wednesday?

Well a little surprisingly after the vile weather last night I was greeted by a beautiful dawn and hardly a cloud in the sky.

One bonus of early starts is I get to see dawn most mornings.

Now for this week's WIIW.  I suspect this is an easy one, but sometimes the ones I think are easy  are the the ones that stump people.

SO without further ado, what on Earth do you think this might be?

Al almost pulls it off

Well when I posted this WIIW image I hoped to score some points for myself. 
But although most people fell into the trap I set, one of the first round guesses is so close that it takes the cigar.
Anne, Linda, Marcy and Jennifer (AKA Old Kitty) all saw the shiny bubble look and plumped for some variation of an inflatable plastic object/
Well guys you are only partly right, it is inflatable, but it is a biological structure not plastic.

That brings us to John Gray with his guess of "jelly fish". That earns a score of 95%!
 
This guy is what we call a "Bluebottle"in Oz. In most of the rest of the world it is called a "Portuguese man o' war".
Although they are jellyfish like they are strictly in another group called siphonophores. 
Unlike jellyfish they float around on the surface dangling their tentacles down into the water. They are unpleasantly common in Oz waters causing around 10,000 stings each year. The sting is not usually dangerous but is extremely painful.
I have been lucky enough to never be stung, but poor Deb has been; she described it as intense pain that made her feel like she was "having a heart-attack".

Just a quick final word, Deb and I are off to Queensland for a lighting trip this weekend. Our baby Lu has been visiting us for the past week. So this weekend we are shooting up to visit our eldest in southern QLD before dropping Lu off at the airport in Brisbane to fly back to Melbourne. A round trip of 1,200 km (750 miles).

In Which Al is Humbled

Well it has been days since I posted my WIIW (we are now closer to next Wednesday than last).

But having sulked for most of the week I will have to stir myself to post an answer.

(Actually I have been working on the cottage such long hours outside my day job I just haven’t had a moment to post.)

In my arrogance last week I posted this Image for WIIW and said  “I suspect no one is going to get 100% on this one”

Only someone did! And in the first comment!

So in a vain attempt to salvage some pride I will run through the not quite correct answers.

Linda G. said... “It's grating of some sort, possibly on some old historic building?”

Not on a building, but I guess it can be called a grating so that earns 60%

 Old Kitty said... “Erm.... it's an extreme close up of a waffle! “

Not food, nope. But I guess that earns 50 bonus points for creativity.

Dawn Simon said... “It's a building! Or...maybe a close-up on an electronic device?”

No, it is neither, and unlike so many WIIW this is not a close up.

Which brings me to Marcy who commented first with “Looks like metal or possibly wood grating, like on a drain in the street or on a boat or maybe a jail. That's my guess(es).”

Well it is, as I said above, a grating and your scatter-gun approach hit dead on with “on a boat” so I have to award 100%

I took this piccie of a paddle steamer on the Murray River. Boats like this towed barges laden with agricultural produce across the whole Murray-Darling river basin from the late 1800s until the early 20^th Century. They almost passed into history with the arrival of the railways in the 1900s, but enthusiasts saved this vessel, and indeed a flotilla of others at the Murray River town of Echuca.

My Brother’s House

Well I thought I was being a little tricky with this WIIW

But you one of you is too good for me!

Linda G said “That looks like storm clouds behind the edge of some sort of billboard to me.”

That is exactly what I wanted people to think. So I guess you get the “Hook, Line and Sinker Prize”

Old Kitty said “The edge of a windmill on a cloudy day!??!”

It was a cloudy day but not a windmill.

 Marcy said “definitely storm clouds...but that thing off to the right? Hmm, it made me think of solar panels but I'm not sure...”

Looks like that doesn’t it? But No solar panels.

Christine said “I think the image is of part of a Melbourne sky scraper, with a stormy sky.”

A good guess, but no.

Which leads us to Anne Gallagher’s powers of observation

“A picture of storm clouds taken in reflection of a window, hence the white panels in the corner.”

Well what can I say, that is almost a perfect description of what is in the image.

A few weeks ago I spent a little time at my Brother’s farm. Early in the morning when I was up on my own I say this reflection in the side window of his kitchen.

The “white panel” is actually a window high on the wall opposite which can be seen through the reflection.

So Anne that earns 100%.

I give you Michael’s House. 

Points all Round.

Well my WIIW this week was an easy peasy one!

Marcy said: "Grillwork in an entry of some historic landmark?"

 Well that is worth 100% + bonus points for the extra information it is an historic landmark!

Jennifer (AKA Old Kitty) said: "Ooooh it's a doorway to one of the old post offices!

 It is an old doorway 100%, but no bonus points because it isn't a post office.

And Linda G said "It's a doorway. ;) "

 That is exactly right it is a doorway, 100%

So what was the mystery building?

 I have posted about this place before...

In the Carlton Gardens just near my office is the Royal Exhibition building

Like the Eiffel Tower in Paris this structure was built as a temporary affair for an International Exhibition. To be precise the 1880 Exhibition when Melbourne was the richest city in the world (thanks to 30 years of gold-rushes) and wanted to show off.

Half of the structure was demolished at the end of the exhibition but a last minute change of heart saved the rest.

The Royal Exhibition Building had a brief break from its normal duties in the early part of the 20^th Century when it acted as the first home of the Commonwealth Parliament of Australia (our second and third Parliament buildings are in our Federal Capital Canberra).  

But since then it has returned to its original duty as the site for around 300 days of shows and exhibitions each year.

Second Time Around

This WIIW piccie didn’t get a correct answer first time around.

 

With a couple of clues guesses have been closer to the mark.

Kristen said: “My first thought the other day was a bridge because the small lights look like headlights. But I don't know why there would be so much light below!”

It is not a bridge, and in fact the “light below” is thrown by something very like a headlight. 40%

Linda G said: “I'll take a stab at it today: is it a sports field at night?”

Not a sports field. But it is at night. 40%

 Misha said: “a car driving really fast on a road at night, so it blurred in the photo?”

You are so close! That is exactly how the image was formed! But it wasn’t a car. 60%

John G said: “its a street light!!!”

Sorry John it isn’t.

Which brings us to Marcy who guessed: “A plane maybe? Landing or Taking off at night?”

That’s it! A plane coming in to land at night. 100%

As you know I was in Queensland for a conference earlier in the week.

I stayed in a hotel in the Goldcoast suburb Coolangatta. Me being me I dragged my camera gear with me on the off chance of having a moment to take some piccies.

Well on Monday night I headed out to the beach and turned my camera towards the lights of Surfers Paradise 20 kilometres away across the bay.

Being a night shot I took a long exposure which left a streak of light across the frame. 

The bright bar of light is the landing lights of an airliner coming in to land at Coolangatta airport.

The dots above it are the intermittently flashing navigation lights

I am not a fan of the Goldcoast. Too much like the rat-race at the beach.

But it does look pretty at night.