Lockdown sunrise

 Another 4 weeks of lockdown about to be announced but fortunately the sunrise is not affected.  The Haven, Terrigal this morning.

A Marvellous photo

An update on my new cat-Miss Marvel. It's only the third day but she seems to be really setting in well and we are already good friends. I know nothing of her history before she was taken in by the RSPCA in May but she seems very affectionate so she could not have been mistreated. The RSPCA paperwork says she was skinny when taken in but in the interim she has been very well fed as she is definitely not skinny now. She is a very pretty and cute cat but I am hardly objective.

This photo was taken with my iPhone SE 2. I would have preferred to have taken it with a camera for better quality but there was no hope of that .She only stood there long enough for me to pull the iPhone out of my pocket. Going to pick up a camera was most definitely not on the agenda.

She's a Marvel

 

 

I have a new cat-Marvel. A three year old female domestic short hair -an RSPCA rescue cat.

After the death of my lovely Himalayan cat, Phoebe, back in March I made the decision not to have another cat for 6 to 9 months. However being alone in this large house in what looks like being a very long lockdown has worn me down. I need feline company so I went and found little Marvel on-line

She was at PetBarn in West Gosford. PetBarn have an arrangement with the RSPCA where rescue animals are displayed in their stores. There were two cats in the West Gosford store and Marvel was my first choice but I would have taken either. I did ask if I could take both but the other one was waiting to be picked up by its new owner so it was just Marvel.

We arrived home at midday and by 12.30 she had managed to climb down the back of the washing machine/dryer in the laundry. I left her there for an hour but she could not climb out and she started to panic so I had to extract her by the scruff of the neck. It was not a good start but we are still friends as she now asleep purring very loudly at the bottom of the bookcase about a metre from me as I type this. I have boarded up the back of the washing machine/dryer.

 

The wonderful Oxley Highway

 Regular readers of The Rolling Road may have noticed that I have changed the header photo to a shot of one of Australia's great driving roads -the Oxley Highway- in northern New South Wales. This photo was taken in August 2016 when friend Craig and I went in our early 911s on the first of what would be annual Porsche 'MatesGruppe' road trips.

We have not yet done the 2021 road trip as our plans have been setback by the Sydney covid -19 lockdown. I missed the 2017 road trip when my heart required a major service.

Sadly when/if we eventually do make the road trip this year we will not be driving the wonderful Oxley Highway as it is closed awaiting repairs after 70 landslips, 10 of them major, occured during the torrential rain back in March. They are working hard to reopen the road but much remains to be done

Driving the Oxley Highway between Walcha and Wauchope is definitely the highlight of the road trip-wide open and fast sweeping bends south of Walcha in New England and then the really challenging downhill mountainous section-lmost a mini Nurburgring but with two way traffic and continuous bends many of them blind.Vintage Porsche driving heaven.

Photos below -wide sweeping upper section taken from a track leading to Waterloo Station. My 911 is 56600H.

 

Spectacular sunrise today

 Another spectacular sunrise in Terrigal this morning. Photo taken from the balcony of the house at 6.45 today, Bastille Day, using my Leica Q2.

Lockdown surfing

The weekend was glorious. Crisp and cold early and then warm during the middle of the day. On Saturday we walked 10kms over to Avoca-a wonderful 3 hour stroll. The surf was glorious and the surfers were out in force. Wonderful winter weather-such a pity about the lockdown.

On Sunday afternoon I drove over to Avoca with my X-Vario. The surf was even bigger and the sea was almost crowded with surfers. Some photos from the afternoon.

A winter's day

 Suffering from mild cabin fever in our avoidable lockdown I took myself off to the Coastal Track in the Wyrrabalong Nntional Park, just 15 minutes drive from home in Friday afternoon. The track was crowded -so much for social distancing-but who can blame people for taking a walk in such spectacular scenery and on such a beautiful day?

Photo taken from Cromarty Hill looking south. The first beach is Forresters and beyond that, just visible, is Wamberal and then Terrigal.

Using the new Adobe Photoshop high resolution feature the enhanced version of this photo is so good that amazingly I can see my house on the side of the hill in the far distance. Extraordinary.

An English summer's day

 I really like this photo of the seafront at Aldeburgh in Suffolk on the North Sea coast of England.

 It was taken by friend, Roger Putnam, on the 30th June. As Roger says "it's like autumn here with people dressed up as if they are going up the south face." The joys of an English summer.

The photo is so so bleak I almost found myself reaching for a thick sweater. Although I cannot see them I can visualise the seniors in their plastic macs huddled in the cafes and tea shops trying to convince themselves that the bracing sea air is good for them.

Roger took tthe photo with his Leica Q2. After a long period of Leica collecting and photography Roger went over to the Sony dark side a few years ago. I know the feeling. However last year the Sony gear was traded in and he is a Leica user again and with photos like this I am sure he is glad that he is.