More pics of the Illawarra Fly

Here they are:

Illawarra Fly

We the Farrells of Jamberoo (not to be confused with the other Farrells of Jamberoo) visited the new attraction just up the hill from us, The Illawarra Fly.

No, it's not an humungous zipper in the pants of the region, but an aerial walkway in the treetops just metres from the cliff face on the Illawarra Escarpment, and just a few kilometres from our place.

The photo is pretty crappy, Zozo wasn't co-operating.

But the view is awesome. Go visit. In the meantime, visit our Picasa web album.

Photos from the big wet

The Big Wet

These photos are from "The Big Wet" of 5 February 2008 (see original post here)

The Great Train Show

The Great Train Show is a podcast "radio show" on the ABC, hosted by former PM Tim Fischer.

A couple of weeks back they asked for humorous train-travel stories, so I sent mine in.

Here is the extract from last week's podcast.

Funerals

I am taking a funeral on Monday - the first in over 8 months. This is remarkable given that I minister to an ageing church where most members are over 65, and a significantly large minority are over 80!

Elva is a dear Christian sister. All the time I've been at Jamberoo she has been a shut-in.

But I grew to love her. She has a great sense of fun. I had scheduled a hospital visit for her one time and arrived in the ward dressed fairly casually, as is my habit. I wore jeans rather than shorts for a change, but otherwise was very casual.

But all the ladies in the ward were done up to the 9s, because Elva had told them the minister was coming. Such was the build up that the ladies had insisted on their best nighties and the nurses had had to put make up on the ladies! We all had a good laugh. One of the nurses thought the archbishop must've been coming, such was the preparation.

Another time Elva was snoozing on her front verandah, and I just went and snoozed next to her until she woke up. He had a good belly laugh when that happened.

But now Elva is with the Lord Jesus. A great Christian lady, with whom we will be reunited at the resurrection.

She is a Jamberoo girl through and through - from one of the old families in town - a generation that will pass within 20 years and break the historical links with the beginning of white history in our beautiful village and valley.

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.

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.

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.

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!