A Saturday journey to Lithgow

A recent clean-up uncovered a tattered printout of a railway timetable prepared in Excel. It dates from Autumn 2002: I think it was Easter Saturday, 30 March 2002.

Whatever the date, I was living at Abercrombie St, Darlington, just a few hundred metres from Eveleigh St and Redfern Station. An ex-girlf was getting married that day, I was in third year at Bible college and I decided to do something 'for me', which meant spending the day by myself.

It was a miserably overcast day, and the following is a summary of what I recorded from my trip next to the pre-printed timetable.

I noted my watch was 60 seconds fast.

By my watch I noted we left Central 3 minutes down at 12.05. By Penrith we were 8 minutes down on the timetable.

By Wentworth Falls our deficit was down to 6 minutes, maintained at Leura, and I noted a 7 minute late departure from Katoomba. The Katoomba entry has a footnote, which reads, "Arrived Katoomba 5 [minutes] down. Train held for an interminable wast (sic) of time. left 7 down."

We recovered to 4 minutes down at Mt Victoria, passed Bell (a conditional stop, and we didn't need to stop) 3 minutes down, arrived at Zig Zag (also conditional) on time and left a minute late, and arrived at Lithgow on time at 14.45!

I didn't record what Lithgow was like but I recall it was murky skies and cold. I bought a hamburger and chips and occupied myself until the return train was due to leave.

I noted that the 4-car set I travelled on went to the yard and picked up another 4 cars; all 8 cars for the return journey were of the modern 'chopper control' style.

The return journey left at 16.40, one minute down. By Katoomba we were 3 down. I noted that the driver 'overshot' the platform at Katoomba, Leura and Wentworth Falls (consecutive stations) as well as Lawson and Laptstone, this consistently kept us between 3 and 4 minutes late. Apparently at Katoomba someone with loud music joined my carriage (note reads, "feral with loud musak").

Blacktown was 4 down; we lost 2 minutes to Strathfield and then were held four minutes at Platform 4 (not 2 as one would expect) to allow a suburban train from the Main North Line to pass ahead of us from Platform 5. Grr! So we departed Strathfield at 18.20, ten minutes behind schedule and only 3 minutes before we were due to arrive at Redfern.

Why am I sharing this? No reason, other than it is an example of aspie-type (or just geekish?) behaviour that I don't normally show, but as a one-off I do. And it seemed a shame just to pitch it out without recording it for posterity.

Our place in the Anglican Communion

All good Anglicans know that the 10-yearly Lambeth Conference for all bishops in the worldwide Anglican Communion is coming up. Sydney's archbishop and bishops are not going, along with the 5 primates of the "Global South" (covering most of Africa, Asia and South America).

Go to www.acl.asn.au for more information.

Larry Norman has died

Larry Norman, pioneer of the world of Christian Rock and Roll, has died aged 60.

(Link to the family statement is here).

One of his better known songs was "Only visiting this planet", so I guess Norman was always aware of eternity.

8 April 1947 - 24 February 2008.

He was often persecuted by the church, had a very public falling out with Randy Stonehill. Suffered brain damage in an airliner when the overhead locker crashed down on him mid-flight and suffered terrible financial woes in his latter days. But he was a hero to many (including me) - especially those of my older siblings' generation who grew up on Larry when he was all that was offered as Christian Contemporary music.

I didn't agree with all his theology, but thank you God for Larry.

Christian joke for the larger man

Church is just over. What a buzz. We had 46 folk across 2 services: not our best and many regulars were away for legitimate reasons, but we also had some visitors, God's Word was proclaimed and I am feeling good about the world.

Then my 'friend' Malcolm sent this link. So deflating! Follow it here: http://www.reverendfun.com/index.php?date=20080222

But seriously, I know Malcolm isn't cruel, and I know his sense of humour, and I think it's funny, so despite my feigned offence, I took none really. And I'm not having a go at Malcolm by writing what follows, for I know Malcolm's theology is more robust than that which I am about to criticise.

As an aside (and this only makes sense if you read the link), the argument "Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit" is trotted out against smoking, being overweight, and anything that our culture thinks (or knows scientifically) is wrong.

And yet, we don't argue that way when it comes to legitimate drugs. I'm on Effexor/XR and some sort of cholesterol drug. Isn't that potentially abusing the temple of the holy spirit? What about my mate who is very thin, doesn't smoke, yet drinks coffee like it's going out of style. He is a drug-addicted pastor!

So the logic doesn't hold.

Furthermore, it's just really bad exegesis. We read in 1 Cor 16, 17: "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple." (NIV)

The 'you' in the original is really 'youse'.

In short (since I've just been called for lunch): the context is about destroying the church. Youse, collectively, when youse gather together to form the church (the body of believers), youse are the temple of the HS. If any of youse destroys the temple (ie does stuff that is hurtful or divisive to the church), youse are destroying God's temple and God will destroy him.

Context removes any proof-texting about health and fitness and reminds us it's about our responsibility to do everything humanly in our power to seek unity in the body of God's people, the church.

Allowrie St, Jamberoo (the main street!)

Hi all,

Well it ought to come as no surprise that there are cows in Jamberoo. But sometimes they are transferred from the various farms down to the swamp (which last week was flooded!).This morning Jensen and I went for a pre-dawn walk in Kiama (and we were rained on!); then we encountered a cow transfer at 7:15 in the middle of Jamberoo. These photos might give you some idea of what I am talking about.

Making movies in Jamberoo

No, not our boring old home movies! This morning as I headed for the gym in the pre-dawn light, I encountered lights! action! camera! at the junction of Riversdale and Jamberoo Rds. A green early model Barina was parked on the side of the road with doors and hatch open, lights trained on it, and all the support vehicles for a film shoot. It was still there on my return, with the hatch part set up for a 'picnic'. No actors visible, though!

Further on, I caught up to a slow moving catering van which turned into Fountaindale Rd (listed on google maps as Saddleback Mountain Rd). There was a sign at the intersection indicating directions to the 'film shoot'.

Wonder what they were filming... probably just an ad for local use.

Cataract Dam Under Construction

Yesterday I posted some pics, one taken yesterday when Cataract Dam was full and the other taken in September 2004 when the dam was only about 60% full.

The above photo is scanned from a book and depicts the dam under construction in on 29 May 1907. Note the 2-foot gauge railway at bottom right. This is now where the lower access road is located. The photo is from Steam on the Illawarra, published by the Illawarra Group of the New South Wales Rail Transport Museum, Burwood, 1979 and the photo credit is the J.L.N. Southern collection.

Droughts and Dams

Above: Cataract Reservoir today. It's 100% full, with water flowing over the spillway and a good amount being released for drinking water.
Below: Cataract Reservoir back on 22/09/2004 when it was very low!

A wet day in Jamberoo.

Hi everyone (or the one of you that peruses this),

We all probably know about the Big Wet that's infested the east coast of Australia.

Jamberoo's version today was interesting... we received 119mm of rain from 9am Monday 4/2 to 5am Tuesday 5/2 when the rain shorted out our outdoor power-point thus waking us up with the office UPS going off its nut. At 6:30pm Tuesday 5/2 it was up to 161mm since the rain started.

So, silly me: I went to the gym at Kiama. The swamp was full; various creeks were overflowing their banks and it was obvious that if the heavy rain did not ease, I wouldn't get home in a hurry. More's the pity too: I had forgotten my wallet and mobile phone. Furthermore, I was meant to drive my parishioner-cum-self-appointed-personal-trainer (actually, wife-appointed!) Marc in to the gym. But after the blackout I overslept so he'd already left when I drove past his place.

At this point I decided that if Marc was in the gym, I'd arrange to drive back to Jamberoo in convoy with him. If he wasn't in the gym, I'd return home immediately lest I get stuck without money or phone!

Needless to say, Marc was in the gym, so I did 10 mins cardio while Marc finished his big jog and did a big bog, then we hit the weights. Our mate Liam (not pronounced the conventional way; it's Lie-am, as in tell a lie - amm) was there. So was the other Mark, and the bloke from the over 55s development across the road.

We did our weights, paid each other out as we do, and we headed home about 8.15am.

Not far into our trip, we encountered a stranded car in Dido St (no prizes for guessing what the locals call that street). The VT Commodore wagon, with two young women and green P plates was stranded on the causeway as the waters of Spring Creek rushed around it. Fortunately, the local SES base is close by so they were on the scene pronto.

It was slow going behind a delivery truck, up around the bends as we traverse the watershed between Spring Creek and the Minnamurra Valley. There were lots of slow-gos around flooded corners and across overflowing culverts leading into both waterways. The Terragong Swamp was chockers; Swamp Rd was under water, someone was being towed out of Browns Lane and Jerrara Creek was well and truly in flood. The historic 1850s Terragong House was only a few inches above water.

Then we got to Fountaindale Rd, and the stretch between there and Factory Lane was submerged. In the middle of it was the Kiama High School school bus loaded with kids. Ouch! We knew it'd be folly to try to get through, so back to Kiama, then home the long way via Albion Park!

This was not uneventful, either! At Dunmore, the Shellharbour Rd was banked up to the highway due to the railway level crossing being flooded and the crossing gates being down as a result!

Then at the Oak Flats Interchange the exit ramp was under several inches of water!

Finally, the approach to the Minnamurra River crossing at Jamberoo was well and truly flooded! We were so close. 4WDs were going through, and it was obviously deep. Thankfully it was not fast flowing, so Marc and I discussed our options. My car is little, but there was no where to leave it. The Volvo was bit and heavy and Marc had a tow-rope. So he went through first and survived, so I followed! So we made it - only 1 hour 15 minutes late, and some 40km out of our way!

We stayed put all day after that. But the question is, given that the rain continues, do I go to the gym tomorrow?