Bathing Boxes

Once again we had been in lockdown and I needed to get out. I wonder when this will ever end.

So whilst we had the chance to get out I took it.

The day began as a bit dull and rainy, but that wasn't going to stop us from getting out, No way.

Where will go somewhere not too far hmm lets think of a good place. Williamstown, Nah been there lots of times, the city yes that sounded good then we though no. some places we thought of were too far away so, I said lets go to the Bathing Boxes at Brighton, so we headed down the Nepean Highway to Brighton.

Sadly when we got to Brighton beach, we saw a sign which said we had to pay for parking, this wasn't there the last time we visited this area. Someone is always trying to sadly get money from you in some form or another.

It rained for a short time, so we sat in the car till it stopped, it was quite windy and overcast as I stepped out of the car trying to carry my camera and brush away my hair from my face. The wind began to die down which was good, as sand was blowing all over the place and I had to be ever so careful with my camera.

As I took photos I wondered who owned these boxes,  what was stored inside them, and what stories they held. Were they owned by young families or older people?

The 82 bathing boxes are unique because of their uniform scale and proportion, all retain classic Victorian architectural features with timber framing, weatherboards and corrugated iron roofs. They remain as they did over one hundred years ago, as licensed bathing boxes. No service amenities such as electricity or water are connected to them.

Each box is unique in it's colour scheme, some have just colours others have murals that the owners have taken time to do. Each one has something about it which draw your eyes to it.

When viewed together they turn the beachside into a work of art, that changes often due to the light and time of day and the season.

Golden hour over Brighton beach, such a pretty time of day.

Sadly the following week we spend 10 days in lockdown and have just come out of it, we have no idea how long this will last, so I better get my camera gear out again, clean my lenses make sure batteries and charged and get ready for our next trip out in this great wide country I call home.

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Our day at Toolangi

 Wow what day we had 27-6-2021

We decided to go to Toolangi State Forest with camera, had a nice time driving on 4 x4 track with our 4 x 4. Well this where our adventure started, we drove down a road called Monda Road, which us and many others thought would take them to the other side of mountain and back onto highway but no it was cut off. No signs to tell us this so us and others that drove that way had to turn back.

We started to travel back on same road only to hear strange noise coming from right side of car. We pulled over in the best spot we could find, remember this road was a dirt track for four wheel driving. When beloved got out of car we had a blow out of they and could not drive car. This was 4pm in the afternoon. Being an Isuzu d mux, it is a very heavy car and bolts holding they on where impossible to move, we rung the Isuzu road side care people but not we don't come off track like that and neither does RACV so beloved had to pursuvea with the help of guy on phone to get tyre off. At this stage it was starting to get dark and I mean dark, our phones where the only sign of light we had, no moon or stars. Our phones when flat and we had to get them charged it was cold and we hadn't eaten since lunch and a few crackers some dip, a drink flask and some cordial was all we had. Lucky we both had coats. I has scarf and beanie so I wasn't as cold. Eventually after getting tyre off, plus waiting for phones to charge at least enough so we could use light to get new tyre on, we realised the tyre wouldn't go on as the ground was too high. So we had to dig the dirt out from where we had to put tyre which took 3 hours as mobiles went flat several times and needed recharging.

It was so dark I couldn't even see my hand in front of me. It was very foggy and the air chill felt lit it was about 4 degrees. The ground was muddy and slippery and beloved managed to slip over in the mud, by this stage he was covered in mud after 3 hours in the pitch dark we hot new wheel on.

I keep looking around as all I could see around us was the tallest him trees I'd ever seen. I was very thankful no wild life came out as I would have been so scared.

Once new tyre was on and with little vision we had through fog we started to head home to what we thought was track. Anyone that knows bad fog, we could just see in front of car, having headlights on full made it even harder to see, so we preceded to drive and guess what, we got bogged.

So we had to run to around to find a company that could help us at this late out. After sitting in car for two hours and midnight clicked over the guys turned up and got us out, only to find out the track we were mean to be on was further to the left. Eventually after all this no dinner we stopped at the only Maccas we could find open and arrived home after 3am, muddy tired and longing for bed.

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Such a long time

 It is such a long time since I have been here, lots has happened in the last few years.

Where do I start...um, well we went through a bit of a torrid time with my dad due to dementia, such a horrible thing for one to have to deal with. Sadly a person goes from someone you recognise sadly to a very different person. In that time I wasn't able to go out with my camera which was very sad,

Then the following year we decided to sell our home of 32 years, which was hard. We had to paint and clean and scrub and dispose of things no longer wanted this took sometime, then finally it was ready to go on the market. Covid lockdowns put a damper on things and that stopped people coming through :( We never thought we would sell the house, but thankfully we did eventually. Now we are renting till our land is titled. Covid has stopped many things happening but not much we can do.

Then our next thing was we lost father in law sadly, so we also had that to deal with as well.

So now thankfully when not in lock down we are able to go out,  we have been to a few places, it was so welcoming as being locked up for great lengths of time is not good on people mental status.

We travelled to Torquay twice which was lovely, although cold and wet one visit the other was hot and sunny, it was a lovely day. I felt so good being able to get to my happy place the beach. It was amazing standing and watching the big waves come in and crash on the rocks creating huge waves.

I was so happy to be able to get a few photos of this beautiful beach. More photos can be seen at https://www.instagram.com/pictures_thru_my_lens/

Split Point Beach Great Ocean Road

Point Lonsdale Great Ocean Road

I was so happy to be out of the house and away from my surroundings with my familiar friend the camera. It had been such a long time since I'd been out and and I was beginning to feel quite frustrated with being home as many of you will understand, one thing you must do is to try and stay positive through all of this.

One of our recent trips was to 13th beach at Barwon Heads. Beloved was starting to feel like myself with only working to which he has been doing at home for the past 12 months, although he enjoys the working from home and not having to get into his car and drive somewhere in the traffic, he still felt the need to get out as I did.

We had never been to 13th beach so it was nice to see something a bit different. When we go out on our trips we now take all our own food and drinks and try to stay away from anyone that is around, we carry our masks with us just in case we get out of the car. It felt so nice to get out see the sunshine and have the smell of the sea air around us. I think I am beginning to appreciate how lucky we are here in Australia and it does make you feel really good getting out after being locked up for weeks.

13th Beach Barwon Heads

On the way home we decided to head to Point Lonsdale, the sun was slowly disappearing and the cold sea breeze was coming in. I was surprised how quickly it had become dark once we arrived at Point Lonsdale. I was able to get a few photos when all of a sudden every thing was covered in a thick white fog. This made it terribly had for the ships that were coming in and the  light house near us sounded it's horn to let the ship know where to go. The light which came from the light house would not have been visible from the ocean and even as close as we stood, we could barely see the light. We walked along the pier but nothing was visible other than the thick fog which was around us, it had also got so very cold. A few men cast their fishing rods off the side of the pier, as they tried to stay warm rubbing their hands together and zipping their coats up to their chin and pulling their beanies over their cold ears.

Point Lonsdale

Our trip home was a fog filled road, we had to be ever so careful that a kangaroo didn't jump out in front of us, with the amount of fog, we may not have been able to see it. The fog followed us almost all the way home. I wondered if any of the fishermen caught anything that night in the cold fog. It looked like a scene out of a horror movie.

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