Question : Answered!

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Every day when I go walking at Jervis Bay, I think..

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Can it possibly get any more beautiful than this?

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Today the question was answered.

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YES!

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It totally can.

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All I have to do is to forget to put the SD card into the camera, and therefore be limited to 15 photos only.

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I’m only showing you 7 of them.

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Ok, maybe 8. There goes the dolphin boat. So many days the dolphins meet the boat here. You can also see the Huskisson sea water pool which is resting for the winter. What a place to go swimming in summer!

Jervis Bay

Orion Beach, Vincentia

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Now that we have finished the new path above Orion Beach, why don’t we head down and take a look at the beach itself? Above you see it from the new path we have been exploring recently, you can see Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

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Heads up – this is one of the steepest sets of beach stairs in the Shoalhaven – at least that I have experienced. This photo is looking back up towards the new path. Important to note, I have not been down every set of beach stairs in the Shoalhaven myself. :) One day!

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There is a section which is flat, like a bridge.

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More stairs down to the beach. But don’t worry..

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The trip will have been worth it, once you get there.

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As far as Shoalhaven beaches go, this one has a big benefit – you do not have to walk across a lot of soft sand to get to the water. Of course that means you do not have as much space to put down your beach towels and belongings. And you need to be aware at high tide there is very little beach to be found here. So you might want to be careful about where you put your stuff.

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On the day we visited, it seemed to be one of the cleanest beaches I have seen. There was not much seaweed or seashells to be found here.

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Now, you just have to climb back up those stairs when it is time to leave.. ;)

Just linking all these posts together –

There Is A New Vincentia Path
New Vincentia Path One
New Vincentia Path Two
New Vincentia Path Three
Orion Beach

Jervis Bay

New Vincentia Path Part 3

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We start off today just past the new Orion Beach stairs. More bridge!

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If you are wondering how these bridges are fastened to the cliff face, wonder no more.

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The bridge leads to another section of concrete path. You can see they did some planting of native grasses along the path. There are tiny little birds known as the Superb Fairy Wren who fly to these grasses. They are so tiny, blend in with the shrubs and bushes, and move so fast, blink and you may miss them. However there are so many of them, during this walk you are bound to spot at least one.

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The male has some bright blue feathers making him easier to spot..

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More bridge. This is kind of a theme, with this path.

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In some places they have done no planting at all, and in others –

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there is both planting of native grasses, and a small section of turf has been laid next to the path here. I am not sure how well the turf is doing. We have not had much rain lately and some parts of it are looking rather brown instead of green.

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Sometimes you will spot larger birds than the fairy wrens. They are quite often very well camouflaged and the only way you notice them is because they flew to a spot and perched there.

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This is a yellow robin. You can also see many other birds along this path. Here is a good site with many of the birds you might find here.

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We are nearly at the end! You can now see the yellow bollards which signify the end of this path.

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This is where the path meets Twyford St. From here you walk along Twyford St until the path begins again at the other end of Twyford St.

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And here is the spot where the new path can be found on Google Maps, so you can find the start of the path easily. It is Twyford St x Minerva Ave.

Just linking all these posts together –

There Is A New Vincentia Path
New Vincentia Path One
New Vincentia Path Two
New Vincentia Path Three
Orion Beach

Jervis Bay

New Vincentia Path Part 2

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Last week, we left this walk on the first honeycomb bridge – we start back at the same spot this week. There is a bit of a downhill dip here, one reason for the hand rails. If you look closely you can see we are headed back towards having our feet on the ground with more concrete path

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Here is a view looking back towards the spot where the first photo above was taken, because you can see the downhill dip a little better.

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Back on the concrete path again!

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Now we are heading towards a set of beach stairs which lead down to Orion Beach. You can see a large tree in the way up ahead, the path has curved to avoid it. Right there is another cliff like drop off, so in our next photo..

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You can see that the fencing and handrails are back. You can also see an upcoming junction.

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There is a small walkway down to this set of Orion Beach stairs in between the houses here.

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I have not been down this set of beach stairs yet. There are just too many beaches in Jervis Bay. Next time I go on this walk, I will make the effort! ;) But don’t worry, you can go with me.

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For us, it is back to the path today. Another bridge awaits us! Not much further to go now, before we are at the end of this new section.

Just linking all these posts together –

There Is A New Vincentia Path
New Vincentia Path One
New Vincentia Path Two
New Vincentia Path Three
Orion Beach

Jervis Bay

Around Here

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It was Saturday morning, and I was sitting in my pyjamas drinking the morning coffee and doing a bit of reading. The Other Half was headed out to the Man Cave, and he said “Shall I let the chooks out?” I said, sure, not even thinking that there were strong wind warnings, because the caffeine had not kicked in yet.

Maybe 20 minutes later, while I was playing Cascade on my phone, I noticed an incoming call from The Other Half on his mobile. Before I could even think what the heck, I answered it. “I need your help out here” he said, out of breath. It sounded like he was fighting spiders, or snakes, or some kind of bad thing was happening, then he was babbling on about the padlock. What padlock, I was thinking? “I don’t understand what is going on” said I.

Rosie has escaped the yard, she flew over the fence and I am trying to catch her, and if you open the side gate I might be able to shoo her in there, but at the moment I am not even sure where she has gone”.

So I raced to the bedroom to throw clothes on, then ran to the backdoor and put on my new gumboots, then ran to the back gate and tried to open the padlock. No go. It had rusted over. I yelled over the fence that I would swap with the other half because I could not open it, and ran around the side of the house. By the time I got out the front I heard this tremendous squawking and then I saw The Other Half emerge from the bushes, Rosie firmly grasped between his two hands.

He was covered in blackberry thorn scratches. She appeared to be fine, other than being very upset about being caught! She is a small chook, and when she gets separated from the other girls she will run like a bat out of hell to catch up with them, and if that does not seem to be fast enough, she will fly. On this morning, being quite windy, she got a little more lift than she expected and sailed over the fence as a surprise to herself.

It will be a few days before we recover enough from this incident to let them out again. I might have to head out down the side lane with the clippers and remove some of those blackberry bushes for everyone’s safety. One night recently, we heard someone using a chainsaw in the dark, the next day I found someone had been cutting up trees for firewood down there. Not a smart move, methinks!

What else have we been up to here, besides chasing chooks?

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Watching – The X Files – we are up to season 8 finally! Plus, Mr Robot is back and it has been amazing thus far. I’m also enjoying season 3 of Murder In The First and The Deadliest Catch.

Freezing – bananas, strawberries, and pineapple for protein smoothies. Namely this Lava Flow recipe with protein added. I am going to try this carrot cake one next..

Ordering – protein in bulk from bulk nutrients, and k/d cat kibble from My Pet Warehouse.

Building – New IKEA furniture – a story for another post. :)

Cleaning – the house like a crazy person as our vet did a home visit for Grumpy. Guess who spent two hours cleaning the bathroom and toilet in case the vet needed to use them, which of course she did not? They are super spotless now though, which is awesome. And that two hours does not include the four or so hours I spent deep cleaning the kitchen/lounge the day before, or the hours we spent vacuuming and mopping the floors the day before that.

Considering – We’ve realised that Grumpy gets very stressed out having to go to the vet, and that was actually making her eye ulcers worse than better. Any progress we would make was wiped out the following visit because she got stressed about the previous visit. On this home visit, we were very glad to find no eye ulcers in the eye, however we are talking with the vet about corrective surgery for her eyelid as it keeps turning inwards.

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Planning – Our Gold Coast – Tamworth – Bathurst trip with Sephyroth, this coming October. In the above photo the pink arrows point to the Peninsula Apartments, where we will be staying, and the blue arrows point to the Q1 which they were building on our trip up there in 2003.

Listening – I made two MP3 CDs for my nephew recently, for his new car. The first two burned wrong for his car, something about folders and playlists, but they work ok in mine, and so I have been greatly enjoying them. It is all 80’s music, all kinds of stuff from I’m Too Sexy by Right Said Fred to Gold by Spandau Ballet. We burned them correctly on the second try and loaded them into his car as a surprise. He sent me an SMS after he drove home in the car to say how awesome the first CD was, and he was right!

Wondering – just who the heck this person is that I seem to have become. I went to Aqua Aerobics last week but the warm indoor pool was closed. My options were – go home or get in the outdoor pool and do some aqua jogging and swimming in there. It was 17C (62.6F) outside, and the pool is heated to 25.2C (77.36) and normally there would be NO WAY IN HELL I would get in an outdoor pool at these low for Australia temperatures, but I was determined to do my exercise, so I GOT IN.

Playing – Cascade and Tiny Tower Vegas on my phone. I do not play a lot of games these days but I LOVE Cascade, it is a bit more difficult than your average gem matching game

I have been playing Tiny Tower Vegas for probably 6 months now, just when I’m going to bed or waking up in the morning. I have 68 levels most at level 7 and 8 – I believe the game runs out of levels just over 100. I also have 1212 chips – and I did not cheat! I just ran out of time to play the poker games and the chips have been stacking up as a surprise to myself.

Chickens, country life, exercise

New Vincentia Path Part 1

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We are starting at the Plantation Point Parade X Lambs Crescent end, which means we are heading back towards the heart of Vincentia when walking the path.

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Here is our starting location on the map. Basically where all the pink arrows meet is where you should head to if you want to do this walk yourself.

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Here is the only available Google Maps street view image, which was taken back in December 2007. Things have changed considerably since then! That house is gone, replaced with a large two story modern home, which you can just see a little of in the very first image I posted here.

I am conscious of the fact that the people who live here did not bargain for this path arriving behind their homes, so when I took these photos I tried to take photos of the path and not so much of the houses. Though in some shots it was difficult to avoid them. My apologies to the home owners, if they happen upon this post.

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There is something in this next photo which you might not be able to spot. Here is a closer view –

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A rainbow pirate ship lives here! There is also a black one, but I did not manage to get a shot of it this day.

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Now you will begin to see some of the hard work done by the path creators. I really love that they have put in plenty of handrails. There are no handrails to be found on the Huskisson to Vincentia path that I recall. Most of that path is flat, though there are a couple of hilly sections which could do with a handrail.

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If I were building this path, I might have chosen a darker colour for the concrete. This path is very new and there is already a lot of leaf staining happening. Though we’ve had some leaf staining on our grey concrete here at home so you might get it regardless of concrete colour. I imagine there will have to be regular leaf blowing along this path.

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And now you see, we leave the ground for a large section of bridge. It is made from an odd material. I have no idea what one would call it. Here is a closer view of it.

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As I am not a builder of paths, I have no idea what this is made from but I really like it. There is another bridge made from the same material on the Vincentia to Huskisson path.

We have not progressed very far along the path, drop back for more path next Wednesday! :)

Just linking all these posts together –

There Is A New Vincentia Path
New Vincentia Path One
New Vincentia Path Two
New Vincentia Path Three
Orion Beach

Jervis Bay