The wanderers return

We've been back home for a few days, and very busy days they have been......so much so that it has taken until now to sit at the computer and put coherent thoughts together.

Our holiday was very enjoyable!  The folk festival was great fun, camping with our friends was a bonus as we all had a great time socialising, playing music and laughing often and long.  Then we hitched the van back to the car and drove east down the mountain to the coastal highway where we had to make a Big Decision - should we turn left (north) or right (south)?  Left or right?  Oh dear, what a choice.......last year we turned left, so this year we turned right.

One place we visited was Trial Bay Gaol.  As the link says it was started in the late 1800s but the name 'Trial Bay' refers, not to the prison as you might expect, but to the fact that a ship called "Trial" was wrecked in the vicinity in 1816.  It is quite a treacherous part of the New South Wales coast where many other ships have come to grief.

 The sign board quote starts with "Each cell is furnished with a strong front door with ponderous bolts that when shut would exhaust the ingenuity of any man to open" - obviously taking no chances that a felon would escape from what was then a fairly isolated place, although a few did.

 Remains of one of the cell blocks on a hot sunny day.

 Trial Bay itself, quite a beautiful place.

Such was the paranoia during World War I that people of German extraction were rounded up, some men were eventually interred in the by then unused gaol while their wives and family were interned in another part of the state.  Many of these people had been born in Australia or were naturalised Australians, but the thinking at the time said that they were 'the enemy' and must be dealt with.  Australia wasn't the only country to treat people in this way but nevertheless, it was done.  One such man was a prominent orthopaedic surgeon in Sydney, and he established a camp hospital where internees and local people were treated.  At the end of the war many were sent back to Germany with or without their wives and children, despite some coming from families who had lived in Australia for two or three generations and who had never been to Germany in that time.

Not far away is.......

 ......which was built in 1891, so it and the gaol are almost twins.

As the day was hot and sunny again and I had a sore possibly broken toe (don't ask) we didn't walk to the top of the lighthouse, however should you wish you can read about it here.

More on the holiday to follow in our next episode.

Bianca was very pleased to see us back and to be home again.  For the past few years we have had a house sitter while we've been away but arrangements fell through this time, so off she went to a local cattery for a bit of pampering for a couple of weeks.  This meant that the house didn't have its usual cleaning beforehand and hasn't had one since we came home either.......the cleaning fairies obviously had a holiday too, so I am going to have to wield a broom soon......

I had great plans to take needle to fabric and work on the grandkid's quilt but that hasn't yet happened either.  The next few days have taken on a life of their own, but we will see what gets done.  The choir has its annual charity concert on Saturday night, the uke group is playing again at the local main street market on Sunday morning and at an awards concert on Sunday afternoon, so that takes care of much of the weekend too.

I have decided that I was put on this earth to accomplish a certain amount, and right now I am so far behind I can never die.

"Requirements for a happy marriage.
Respect for each other is as necessary to a happy marriage as that the husband and wife should have an affection for one another.  Social equality, intellectual sympathy, and sufficient means are very important matters to be considered by those who contemplate matrimony."

Add to that, the ability to share a very small camper in wet weather without either party committing murder.

Enjoy your days!