Tales of the Subaru - Eurobodalla 2019

Kiama
  
I imagined retirement would be a continuum of short holidays punctuated by the occasional Women’s Weekly World Discovery Tour (or something of that nature) but life often has other plans or absolutely none at all.  We have appointments and therapies; chooks and an old cat; invalid lizards and turtles; elderly family; birds and a garden to attend to and that’s all fine.  But occasionally those little holidays do happen and even something bigger from time to time.

I’m writing from our balcony at the Kiama Cove Boutique Motel (which would have lived up to its name in the 1960s) where I'm enjoying the surf as it rolls in from the Tasman Sea.  There's also no small degree of delight to be had in people watching although people with dogs are much more entertaining, especially dogs who decide they've had enough and they're just not going one step further.  We have a cat like that; he knows his own mind and the rest of you can all go to buggery!

This is a well-worn path for us.  First stop Shellharbour where we visit Peter’s oldest mate John who found himself a nursing home 20 years or more before his time.  Then we continue on to Kiama for the night and have dinner at Hanoi on Manning which is always a special treat.  Simply imagining their green papaya salad can brighten my darkest day; actually eating it is pure bliss, a culinary sensation that was echoed a few days later.  

From here it's on to the McFoleys; Cate and Brian, at Batemans Bay but before we get that far let me take you back to our decent down Mt Ousley at the back of Wollongong.  It was happily uneventful until my mind started revising the things I'd packed with an emphasis on medications.  I remembered tossing the blue case that contains both of my injectors into the bag but no fresh vials of insulin.  Bugger, Bum and poop with the possibility of a diabetic coma on the side!

I left Peter and John at a restaurant and set off to find a pharmacy that had some Novomix 30 on hand, something that usually has to be ordered a day in advance.  Well the good luck gods were smiling upon me as they uncharacteristically had been over the previous few days.  I called my pharmacy to have them fax the prescription through and it was all sorted while we enjoyed lunch.  Praise be to helpful pharmacists and our wonderful Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme!

So back to the present, here's me enjoying the glory of a brand new day but a pair of elderly interrupters have just turned up with a goddamn drone.  I don't want to share their wannabe pilot fantasies - keep that to yourselves you rancid old coots!  Whatever became of quiet, eco-friendly kites?!  Oh yes, silly me, flying them actually requires some degree of skill and they're not electronic.  Everything has to be electronic these days, there must be buttons and batteries!

Batemans Bay

We left Kiama right on 10.00am exactly as planned but I felt compelled to stop just a kilometre down the road to take a photograph of the sign at Stan Crapp Funeral Directors because when I shuffle off this mortal coil I want my body shipped down to the Illawarra so I can have a Crapp funeral.  Who wouldn't?

But seriously, if you were born into a compromising surname wouldn't you get to a point in your life when enough was enough?  When I taught at Artarmon the local Anglican minister was Mr Death which he pronounced Deeth.  Well go to the Registrar-bloody-General’s office and have it changed to Deeth; stop scaring children and old people!

Using your mother’s maiden name seems like an extremely viable alternative to living with an unfortunate surname and you still have continuity.  I don't know what Stan’s mother’s name was but let's just suppose it was something quite literally unremarkable like Brown.  Stan Brown works fine and still retains the continuity I was speaking of in terms of both family connection and hue.

The drive south to Batemans Bay was a delight with our first stop in Milton for a freshly made salad roll from the Milton-Ulladulla Bakery but no Depression glass at the local bric-a-brac shop.  Never mind, that stuff has to want to find you and ultimately does which makes it all the more special like the bowl I discovered at the Cawthorne Antique Centre in South Yorkshire and the one that was waiting for me last time we stopped at Milton.  So on down the road we went to Ulladulla, not only because we love the name but because you have to pass through there to get to Batemans Bay and they also have a Rivers store where we picked up some new shoes for Peter.

I swore and made rude gestures as when drove past the aptly named Mt Agony Road where I stopped for a piddle in the bush several trips ago and took a small colony of leeches back to the car with me, all of them firmly attached to my ankles.  I'd only driven a few km when the penny dropped.  I flung the old Pathfinder into the gravel, jumped out and began to dance about like a crazed Native American doing a war dance in a 1950s cowboys and Indians shoot-‘em-up, plucking the parasitic bastards from my bleeding skin and grinding them into the dirt as I went. 

This time I made certain I drained every last drop of urine from my bladder at the loo behind St Peter and St Paul Anglican Church in Milton because I'm never gonna be caught short like that again!  

Gaspar and Lorena, the lovely Chilean/El Salvadorian couple who own the leatherwork shop in Mogo were as welcoming as ever and caught us up with recent holidays and family developments. Gaspar makes Peter's eye patches and also tightens the bands when they loosen as they do over time.  We left him with two to service and an order for a new brown one.  No deposit required, they'll mail them to us and we can sort it later.

From there it was over the hill to the McFoleys and, after a catch up, a lovely swim with Cate in a large natural rock pool at nearby Surf Beach.  They actually live in the locality of Surf Beach but up on the hill behind the beach with wonderful views out across the bay to the Tollgate Islands and Tasman Sea beyond.  

We awoke to rain next morning which is, in itself, quite the treat these days but it cleared to a brilliant day.  We spent a few hours chatting on the balcony then went to the cafe at the marina for some of their outstanding beer-battered chips before hitting the beach again.  

It was low tide and there were too many Canberrans being, as it was, a long weekend in the ACT so we headed back to our rock pool where I was attacked by a flock of sharks - or so I insisted.  In truth I found myself being nibbled around the ankles by dozens of baby fish, all of them quite intent on bringing me down and finishing the job, I'm certain!  That, however, was far preferable to the leeches that did the same on that previous visit.

The Eurobodalla always leaves up wanting more but Cate and Brian are generous hosts so there'll more to be had at another time.  We waved goodbye at around noon on Sunday and turned DeDe the Subaru northwards but not without one more stop at Milton which is a truly worthy little town.

South Coast Tucker Tip #1 - Pilgrims Vegetarian Cafe at Milton

You can't miss Pilgrims and you really mustn't.  It's right in the middle of town directly opposite the pub.  Cate recommended their Bliss Burger and a chai latte with honey and she was absolutely spot on.  This is our new must-stop in Milton.

Once More Around the Sun - 2018

January was stinking bloody hot, the hottest on record, but of course there is no climate change and the Abbott of the Abyss has taught us that “Coal is good for humanity.”  Peter and I have finally embraced that message, joined the masses who couldn't give an airborne act of copulation about sustainability and thrashed the shit out of our ducted air conditioning.  Bugger the planet, we’ll be outa here in 20 years so let somebody else's grandchildren pay the price!  Yes?

Kevin celebrated his 18th birthday in February and now he's headed towards 19 albeit rather slowly and with long sleeps between meals and toilet breaks.  The birds that regularly visit our garden no longer take Kev seriously and he shows little interest in them anyway.  He does, however, enjoy a morning ramble which usually includes a graze on fresh grass which he never throws up again until he comes back inside.  We do treasure our very special Old Boy and don't take a single day with him for granted.  In fact we don't take any day for granted.

That goes especially for family and friends.  Jan is managing fairly well but Tony has had a rough year with his back and the sudden passing of his younger brother, Noel.  Since he's now 78 we've been trying to avoid spinal surgery for a raft of reasons and have finally had success with a nerve block on his lower back.  Let's all touch wood and cross our fingers!  That came after their long awaited trip to Japan which they enjoyed but felt a bit compromised because their general decline in mobility and corresponding increase in pain.  Ageing is a bitch!

We said sad goodbyes to two of our Significant Woman this year.  Our most gentle girl, Sylvia, simply stopped walking and eating one day in early April although she seemed otherwise well and happy.  I tube fed her three times a day for a month and administered a series of pills and injections but on our third trip to the avian vet it was clear what must happen.  She went without fuss and is now helping to push up a couple of camellias.

Miss Margaret, who was a small chook with a big personality, joined her in November.  Marg suffered a prolapsed cloaca mid-year but once that was fixed and she had a remarkable recovery.  But as it happened, her hormones were extremely determined.  They fought the implant she was given to stop her from laying and it was on again.  All Kathy the avian vet could do for the second prolapse was to help her gently along.

Hazel has also had an implant to stop ovulation and give her a chance to recover some condition.  Like Sylvia, she's an ISA Brown and if you're considering chooks I urge you to stay well away from them, personable creatures though they are.  ISA Browns are an engineered breed, designed to lay an obscene number of eggs in a very short time.  There’s no well-earned retirement, just chooky “women’s problems”.  Hazel, Sylvia and Margaret racked up some seriously impressive medical bills between them but Truganini and Oodgeroo, both Australorps, go from absolute strength to strength and lay almost as many eggs.  If you're getting chooks get purebreds!

Which brings me to Lottie, Molly and Ethel, our new Chooklettes who arrived in mid-November after quite a search.  Point-of-lay purebreds are scarce as hens’ teeth so we got Lottie and Ethel at 6 weeks and Molly at 8.  Lottie is a Light Sussex named for Jan and Tony’s gracious neighbor; Molly is a Lilac Sussex named for Tony’s very special Auntie Molly; and Ethel the Plymouth Rock is named for my dear irreplaceable Auntie Eth.  The Significant Women tradition continues.

When Peter first sustained his Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) I fought long and hard to get some kind of rehabilitation and while every facility I approached was sympathetic they were also quite blunt about the fact that rehab was only available if the ABI was the result of a road accident which attracted third party insurance.  There was very little for anybody else.  I won't labour the details but the first few years were extremely difficult, especially after Peter’s wonderful dad died and his formerly supportive cousins moved in to hijack what was left.

After months of dead ends and floundering we had the extreme good fortune to be taken under the wing of St Joseph’s Hospital at Auburn which was not too far from where we lived at that time.  They provided us with several months of in-home occupational therapy and when that came to an end we were picked up by their amazing speech pathology team and here I must acknowledge both Belinda McDonald and Linda Clarke, especially Linda who stood by us both for a full eight years and found slot after slot for Peter long after any other organisation would have dropped him off their books.  Linda, Belinda and the dozens of students they organised to work with Peter over those eight years made a huge difference to both of our lives.

Enter Prime Minister Julia Gillard who recognised that an extraordinary number of people like Peter far worse had fallen through the cracks of a highly flawed system.  She set about building the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) which, along with The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, is a lasting legacy of her prime ministership and for that I acknowledge and thank her as well.  The conservatives fought to stifle Julia's plan but it limped to fruition under their reluctant watch when they took government.  It had become a force that simply could not be stopped.  Peter has been approved for support and the plan I presented was accepted without amendment.  We were treated with curtesy and respect every step of the way which I might tell you has been our same experience with Centrelink over the years.

We headed northward in DeDe to visit our lovely Aunty Joan in May.  She moved from her home on the Gold Coast to a facility on Bribie Island just north of Brisbane where she's enjoying the company and is also much closer to her son Peter and his wife Mandy who live quite close by.

No northern sojourn would be complete without a few nights in Armidale and a wander around my alma mater.  I like to remember and catch up with friends.  This time it was my old mate Sheree and it’s been a full 40 years since we both lived on Top D at Drummond College but it was as if no time had passed.  We always spend time with Shara and Tom as well.  They're not from the day but it's been almost as long.  There’s comfort in being with old friends who’ve shared your history.

Next was the town of Esk in south-eastern Queensland, the ancestral home of the Kransky Sisters who we discovered aren't quite as famous in Esk as they are in other places.

Click here - The Kransky Sisters  - Psycho Killer

That aside, a very friendly woman in the deli section of the Esk IGA kindly offered us each a free cheese kransky.  I don't eat anything even vaguely mammalian so politely declined the offer but Peter assured both Mavis and myself that it was rather moreish.

We motored on to Warwick wondering why there is no Trevor, Brian or Pamela and that's where DeDe’s windscreen was struck and cracked by a stone on the town bypass which, like much of Queensland, was under reconstruction.  When we were hit by a second stone at the back of the unrecognisable Sunshine Coast development orgy that was once Mooloolaba we just laughed.  I'd neither cracked nor broken a windscreen in 46 years of driving but you know they say about Queensland: Beautiful one day, two cracks in your windscreen the next!

We had 5 nights at the Gemini Resort at Golden Beach just south of Caloundra which is where Kim, Annette and I used to stay when we had our Queensland spring holidays back in the mid-1980s.  I worried it might have changed but wasn't disappointed and nor was Peter.  We had views up the Pumicestone Passage, over the northern tip of Bribie Island and out to sea.  It was perfect for day trips and driving down to the southern end of Bribie to visit Aunty Joan.

Next came the Anstees; Annie and husband John; another flash apartment; and a very nice Thai dinner at Coolangatta on the way south.  Now anybody who knows Mrs Anstee should sit down immediately, OK?  She baked us an excellent banana loaf for afternoon tea and even made passionfruit butter to go with it!  I remained gob smacked next day as we continued on down the ever lengthening and still somewhat newish Pacific Motorway for a couple of nights at Port Macquarie.  We like to catch up with Noelene Bailey who is the mother of my late great university mate, Dave.  It's been about 35 years since David left the building and I can't drive past Port without stopping by to visit Noelene.  It's that shared history thing again.

My annual political observations in two words: Donald Trump - twat; Scott Morrison - joke.

And speaking of jokes, I was joking when I said we had joined the masses who couldn't give an airborne act of copulation about sustainability although we did give the air conditioning a hiding last summer.  That said, we do have solar power and unlike many, we close all the windows when the air is on.  We have planted about six extra trees this year and just when I'm certain there's no more space another one presents itself and we suddenly find a spot that's perfect. 

So, my friends, our message is the same as every year.  Tread lightly upon this fragile planet of ours.  It took it 4.5 billion years to develop its extraordinary diversity so let's not bugger it up.

Peace, love & happiness

Glenn, Peter (Lyle), Kevin, Fluffy, Uranus, Baby Blue, Little One, Peggy
& the Significant Women

Tales of the Subaru - Leura Gardens Festival 2018 - The Epilogue

Writing about the Leura Chinee Restaurant brought back a raft of memories from the Loong Cheong Chinese Restaurant which used to be at the end of a short arcade in Florence Street, Hornsby.  It still exists further along Florence Street, tucked into the side of Westfield to which it is otherwise unconnected.  I describe it as a Chinese restaurant because Jane Turner in her guise as Kath Day-Knight was yet to be born let alone coin the word Chinee as a culinary term when the Loong Cheong first came into being.

Our friend and neighbour Daphne worked at the Loong Cheong during its first incarnation and her name should be a lesson in what not to call your child because poor Daphne spent her entire life known as Daffy which must surely take a toll.  One can only imagine what was going on in the minds of Jack and Ida Face when they named their son Richard.  He went on to become the Member for Charlestown in the NSW Parliament then Minister for Gaming and Racing in the Carr Government until an ICAC inquiry brought poor old Dick Face completely undone.

But I digress!  I want to reflect on the Loong Cheong, not people with unfortunate names like Gordon Fang who was a dentist I once had or the Turkish boy I taught whose name was Kunt.  That apparently means strong or durable in ancient Turkish but gets a bit lost in English.  There was no time to be wasted so after a very sensitive discussion with his parents Kunt became Curt.

Now back to the Loong Cheong which was way ahead of its time with optional chopsticks back in the 60s and exotic names for some of their specialty dishes like Wah Hop Fan which might have been a crumbed chicken cutlet with sweet and sour sauce at any other suburban Chinese.  I was rather partial to this dish, particularly with a side serve of special fried rice, and it remains something of a favourite to this very day provided the sauce is more sour than sweet and not too glow-in-the-dark.

It was a winter evening in 1968 when Daffy brought my Wah Hop Fan and special fried rice to our table then returned to the counter to take people’s BYO pots and casserole dishes through to the kitchen so they could collect their pre-ordered takeaway in the very same thus saving the container surcharge which in hindsight was environmental friendliness decades ahead of its time.

That was the night the Loong Cheong lost a much valued customer. 

In walked Ed Devereaux who played Ranger Matt Hammond in the new and very popular TV series ‘Skippy the Bush Kangaroo’.  He had arrived sans pots and pans to collect the order he’d phoned through earlier as one could do now that it was the 1960s.  He was an actor and therefore presumably wealthy so didn't need to skimp on such things as disposable food containers which was pretty much the mark of affluence at that time.

All would have been fine and Ed would quite possibly have gone on collecting his takeaways from the Loong Cheong for decades more had my mother been seated on the other side of the table but no, she had an unobstructed view of both the door and counter so recognised Ed Devereaux immediately.  Things would have still been OK had my mother possessed the skill of containing herself but no!

She stood up, pointed and yelled “Look, there's Skippy’s daddy!”

The near full restaurant gasped; he glared; I shrank.  Dad had seen and heard it all before but I was 14 and it was just like the morning Mum drove me to school in her nighty and dressing gown and the car broke down in the rain so 20 years before the invention of mobile phones she hightailed it straight into the school office and called the NRMA without batting so much as an eyelid.

Ed Devereaux gathered up his order which had been packed into newfangled plastic bags and according to our good friend and neighbour, Daffy, never again returned to the Loong Cheong Chinese Restaurant.  In fact, he left the country not long after that and moved to London where I can only but hope he enjoyed relative anonymity at his local Chinese restaurant.

Tales of the Subaru - Leura Gardens Festival 2018

We pointed DeDe up the hill to the residence of the a Emeritus Principal Foy in Leura on the Friday of what was apparently a long weekend, something which is delightfully irrelevant when you're retired.  Of course a holiday tends to attract other people which is always a shame but never mind.  They usually maintain some degree of distance if you carry a walking stick and mumble a great deal.

 Blue Mountains Tucker Tip #1 - The Avalon

This is my favourite restaurant in the Blue Mountains.  It's located in the lounge and dress circle of the old Savoy picture theatre in Katoomba where the deco decor is eclectic as are the table settings and the defunct urinal in the men’s toilet - if you go you must look!  They even have some of my mother’s flowery crockery which I gave to friends in Katoomba with instructions to pass on anything they couldn't use so eating off that is a treat in itself.

But the food!  Yes, the food; it's good.  I always order the pan-fried chicken fillets with a lemon & Dijon mustard cream sauce that's served with rösti potato & salad because the do the best röstis this side of Switzerland.  And can I ever go past the liquorice cheese cake?  No, never!

We met our mutual friend Kathie for drinks at the Carrington and I was looking forward to chatting with her over dinner at the Avalon but no such luck.  They had a jazz quintet playing and they were bloody loud!  They were also very good but I think management has become little confused about their core business.

I had my back to them which was as well because they were distractingly scary to watch.  The singer, who was quite the talent, had his balding hair dyed several shades darker than jet black and sported a pencil thin moustache to match.  In fact most of the band had jet black hair which projects a certain look in a group of men who are all in their 60.  The jury is still out as to whether they were taking the piss or serious but given their collective commitment to jet blackedness I'm tending towards the latter.

The Leura Gardens Festival

Andrew, Peter and I hit the gardens next morning and there were some stunners.  Best not waste your time on institutional landscapes like the Fairmont Resort, look for real gardens that surround the homes of the people who actually created and tend them.

The garden of Hawke Government minister Neal Blewett and his partner Robert Brain is one such treasure.  During his time as Minister for Health, Neal worked hand in glove with his Opposition counterpart, Peter Baume to prevent the AIDS epidemic from becoming bigger than it already was  and between them they saved thousands of lives.  For this reason they are my heroes so when Neal came trotting down the stairs to his garage where I was buying orange and ginger marmalade from some Katoomba Hospital volunteers I crash-tackled* him to introduce myself and to think him for all he has done.  The latter seemed to genuinely surprise him which is the mark of the man.

*I didn't really crash-tackle Neal because he's about to turn 85 as I write and spritely though he appears, you just never know about bone density but he did offer his hand and I haven't yet washed mine.

And speaking of 85 year-olds, we discovered another one stuck high and dry in his golf cart on our way to the Blewett-Brain House.  I'm not sure how he managed it but regardless of how hard we pushed either one or both of the rear wheels simply failed to make contact with the ground and since these are the wheels that do the business he wasn't going anyway fast - or any other way.

I'd have thought that lifting a golf cart would have been achievable but up until that point I’d failed to factor in the bank of batteries beneath the seats.  That's when a pair of Italian lesbians pulled up to lend a hand.  Never underestimate the power of a determined dyke!  Between the four of us we had the old chap and his clubs puttering off towards the golf course, and doubtlessly the 19th hole, in no time at all.

Blue Mountains Tucker Tip #2 - Lily’s Pad

Lily’s Pad Cafe in Grose Street, Leura is a great place for lunch being, as it is, one street off Leura Mall and therefore one street away from the tourist coaches.  The food is excellent as well.  I went with the all-veg three salad combination plate but both Peter and Andrew ordered pig things despite me reminding them that at the time of slaughter pigs are as intelligent as a three year-old human child and often much easier to live with.  One can but try!

Leura Art Tip #1 - Light & Shadow Fine Art Gallery

This is actually a photographic gallery with access through Lily’s Pad.  The owner’s mother has the right to print from Max Dupain’s negatives so most of the downstairs area is dedicated to his iconic images.  It's difficult not to enjoy Max Dupain but tear yourselves away and go up stairs to see what some more contemporary photographers are doing.  We were intrigued by the work of Peter Damo who specialises in nature photography but also creates montage overlays of up to ten images with quite magical results.  One such piece created from ten land and sea images he shot while in Iceland took all three our eyes collective.  Having been there ourselves just last year we now own it but will also need invest in some more walls on which to hang our growing collection.

Blue Mountains Tucker Tip #3 - Leura Chinee Restaurant

I prefer the Kath Day-Knight pronunciation of the culinary style so let's go with Chinee rather than Chinese who are people and therefore best not eaten, apparently unlike pigs who are fair game.  Did I mention that our porcine cousins have the intelligence of a three year-old human child when they're slaughtered?  The pig that is, not the child which like Chinee, you must not eat!

Peter and I first discovered the Leura Chinee Restaurant whilst not celebrating Australia Day in 2016 - Tales of the Subaru - Leura After Dark.  I said it then and I'll say it again now, its beaut!  They serve good old fashioned suburban Chinee Tucker, the kind you had for takeaway on Friday or Saturday nights. 

Remember when Mum would take you into the local Chinee with her own pots or casserole dishes in hand because takeaway containers cost extra?  That's how the generation that produced the Baby Boomers afforded to buy their own homes rather than sitting back complaining about how they can't get a break because of all the old people with their superannuation and negative gearing.  Come on hipsters, give up the smashed avocado and espresso martinis for a while.  Go and buy a fibro majestic starter home or a one bedroom flat somewhere that's pretty ordinary.

I rather wish we’d arrived at the Leura Chinee about ten minutes later than we did this because we would have completely avoided several families that were sitting at a large round table with an indeterminate number of self-raising children.  There was a time when taking a child to a restaurant was not only a treat but a learning experience but not these days, any public space is simply an extension of one’s own home and therefore absolutely anything goes.

And go they finally did, thank Christ, but not without a great deal of too and fro and holding open of the door on a rather chilly Blue Mountains evening.  Yes, I'm a grumpy old man and I'm seriously comfortable with that!

The young couple next to us were charming but impossible not to observe.  She looked like a blonde, non-transitioning version of Jordan Raskopoulos which would have been fine had she stuck to Jordan’s subject matter or at least something a little lighter than the dark philosophical monologue the young man opposite was politely absorbing, or at least so it appeared.  They also absorbed the best part of six different dishes compared to our two but we did splurge the kilojoules and sugar on some deep fried ice cream at the end.

I do enjoy watching and listening.  The two young people who were waiting tables were ethnic Chinese (not Chinee which you eat) but had unmistakable Australian accents which is in no way unusual but I did enjoy the exchange, in English, with the table of Chinese Chinese behind us who were being whipped into shape by one of their own number, a 30-something woman who’s passive aggression bloomed into full-blown aggression by the time they all left.  She was going to make her point and eat it too, all in heavily accented English for which I mentally thanked her.

But the best was to come.  We met the owner, a very pleasant and surprisingly tiny woman who can talk the leg off an iron pot as we discovered when I asked why the restaurant had been closed for 13 months.  It appears she slipped and fell in the kitchen which caused a brain bleed necessitating major surgery and a long recovery so they shut up shop.

Now those of us in the Brain Injury Community have to stick together and there went our second bottle of wine while we heard a full two-thirds of her life story starting from when she owned the Ingleburn Chinee Restaurant, had her son down there and her daughter in Leura (the aforementioned wait staff) as well as the advice from her father and various in-laws that got her to the point where I'm writing about it.  She also mentioned that she'd become a lot more chatty and a bit forgetful since the operation as I can testify when she came back for round two after we finished our deep fried ice cream.

She is both chatty and charming and we were very pleased to know she's joined the ranks of the survivors.  It was hugs all around before we were finally on our way into the chill Leura night, me with shorts on of course.

Next morning was a testimony to the need for retirees to avoid festive long weekends.  When we set out to view our final three gardens I was reminded, in no small way, of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice scene from Fantasia.  The previous day’s tourists had all split in two then done so again like rutting amoeba and the buggers were everywhere with more and more completely disinterested youngsters appearing as if out of nowhere. 

Blue Mountains Nursery Tip #1 - Longview Garden Centre

There really should be an application process for attending garden festivals - and a written test!  The gardens at The Everglades were a purgatory that neither owner Georgina Stonier nor designer Paul Sorensen could have ever imagined.  It was like a Norman Lindsay etching with the satyrs and sirens replaced by day trippers.  We pointed DeDe back down the hill with our booty from the Festival plant sales and Longview Garden Centre at Wentworth Falls which I cannot recommend highly enough for both their range and knowledge.

If my ramblings have whet your appetite for next year’s garden viewing I strongly recommend you stay overnight in Leura and hit the trail early on the Friday when it's not so busy.  If you exclude anything commercial or institutional you'll happily knock the lot over by closing time with lunch and a stop at the plant sales included.

Click on the image to view the slideshow.