heinpit.de

Panorama photo: Lunch on Pearl Beach

Camping in The Basin. The Basin is the name of a camp ground in Ku-ring-gai Chase national park in Sydney's north. Whoever is now thinking of caravans, holiday units, small shops, and facilities for washing the dishes and clothes, is in the wrong. The Basin is more or less a cleared patch of grass; the facilities are limited to toilets and cold water showers.

Nevertheless (or maybe therefore) The Basin has got a special charme: For once, it is only accessible by foot or via the water — e.g., with the ferry. Secondly, the landscape surrounding it is breathtaking. On the opposite side of the bay, Pittwater, stretches the long peninsula of Palm Beach with its light house at the tip. And the campground is backed by the sharply rising national park with its Sydney sandstone boulders and eucalypt trees. At night wombats, possums, and wallabies run between the tents.

For Claudia and Peter, The Basin is also the campground where we experienced our first ever real camping in Australia. No wonder that we can't resist when our sea kayak club suggests a trip to here, despite the winter, despite the cold showers. We are not disappointed: To meet nice paddling friends, to explore the national park from the water, to eat sandwiches on deserted stretches of beach at lunchtime, to have a glass of red wine around a camp fire before exhaustedly crashing into the tent — all this even the coldest of showers can't becloud.

Yet again ...

... the popular before & after shots

News from the renovations front. The bedroom is finished after 6 weeks of working on it. Even though the adjacent photos mainly show new colours, the bed room was indeed the second large renovations front after the living room. We have taken out parts of the wall to the adjacent room, and closed off the former doorway for this room. That means much work again with studs and noggins, plasterboard sheets, metal edges, plaster putty, and sand paper. The plaster dust spreads throughout the entire house and gets stuck in our noses. With moved doors the position of light switches had to be adjusted, too. Hence, let us have a look into the details: Light switches are connected to power cables; to move these in an existing wall, we had to drill holes into the noggins between the studs from up above in the roof with a very, very long drill bit. It needs a lot of patience to thread the power cables through those far-below tiny holes in the noggins, too. It took us about 2 hours per light switch. Plus, we removed old telephone cables — now that everything is wireless they are no longer needed — and put in new power plugs. Per power plug, we had to allow up to 4 hours again. Old lights and corresponding cables were removed (see photo: lights under the middle beam, connection into the wall, and light switch are gone), old down lights removed, holes sealed, new holes for downlights drilled into the ceiling, and connecting the lot. After all these fiddly works, painting is a walk in the park. And then comes the absolute best: A new carpet and new roller blinds (same style throughout the house)! The only thing still missing is a walk-in wardrobe for the adjacent room (see monthly report August 2006).

Don't get in their way

Breakfast in Dee Why (or: A Morning on the Beach). In July it is cold in Sydney and we are exhausted from the modifications to the house. Therefore, we spend a Sunday doing "something ordinary": We meet up with friends for a breakfast out. This "out there" is Dee Why, one of the closest Northern Beaches. To be there on a Sunday at 8:30am means to set the alarm early and leave the house still half-asleep. But having arrived at the beach we quickly wake up and enjoy the winter. To our surprise, the ocean has a lot of swell on this day and for the first time ever we watch the so-called "surf boats" that are part of Australian beach culture, lying on every beach, taking to the waves indeed. Whatever you do, don't get in their way...!

Even more surfers

Fingal Bay Week-end. Surfing might be part of the Australian culture, but the people did not invent it. On another week-end we escape to Fingal Bay, rent a cabin in a caravan park (easy, we need some rest!) and spend our week-end walking up and down the various beaches with Kevin and Sue. We are just scrambling the rocks between two beaches when the dolphins show up. The number of dolphins in a pod is always hard to count since you never know if that dorsal fin that comes out of the water twice at that spot belongs to one dolphin or two. In any case, this pod is big, at least 12 animals. They are surfing the waves, taking the mickey out of the human surfers not far away who now look like poor copies of a beautiful original ...