Yamba - Our new home town.

We have now been in Yamba for almost a fortnight, having arrived on the afternoon of Sunday 18th. of May.
Our new home has been vacated (yesterday evening) by the previous owners and next week the painter will be going in to give the eight-year old interior walls and ceilings a fresh coat before we move in.
So until the 13th. or 14th. of June we are in rented accommodation - a town-house not very far from our new address.

Yamba lighthouse and pilot station, taken from the TLC FM studios in the old lighthouse replica

The past fifteen days have seen beautiful weather - unusually warm, with blue skies and soft breezes. Not at all what we would be experiencing in Canberra and even unseasonal for this coastal area. This is, after all, supposed to be almost the end of autumn. But nobody is complaining!

Last weekend the regular "last-Sunday-of-the-month" markets were held in Ford Park and it was another balmy day  - a superb morning.

I have to pinch myself now and then to make sure I'm not dreaming that I'm living this lifestyle!

The stained-glass panels

When we moved into our Canberra home (1985) the front door was accompanied on one side by two translucent, yellow, glass panels. Very 1970s.
Well, the feature went well with the Mission Brown window frames and roof tiles.
Again....very 1970s, and a decor enhanced (?!) by the dark-red laminated bench-tops in the kitchen and bathrooms.

My wife had just taken up an interest in stained glass/lead-lighting....creating her own from various designs.
This was proper, legitimate lead-lighting work, not the faux stuff that can be bought now, where decals and paint are applied and the "lead" is actually a stick-on rib of plastic material.

Her first attempt, a panel of about 2 feet by 18 inches, is still in our garage.
The learning process continued and finally she felt confident enough (1986) to "go public" and decided to create two panels to replace the yucky yellow items at the front entry.

We can't take them with us, unfortunately, but last night I turned the porch light on and, for the first time in almost 30 years, took some photos with the lead-light panels back-lit.

They are reproduced below, one above the other, as they appear in real life.

I'm going to miss them but my wife has resumed her interest in lead-lighting and copper-foiling and intends getting back into it after we settle in Yamba, so maybe one day our new home will feature some of her work.

Canberra - 14 days and counting

It has been a very cold day, with temperatures hovering around the 10 degree mark and accompanied by a constant pattering of rain. Nothing like Yamba, where it has been sunny and around 20 degrees. AAAAAGH!!

Our last garage sale is being held this weekend and today was pretty good, with a constant flow of people between 7:45 AM and 4:00 PM, when we closed shop for the day.
Tomorrow might be a waste of time as there's not much left but you never know; one man's trash is another's treasure.

The house is becoming more empty as we continue to pack. There is more space in each room and in some there are echoes because soft furnishings have gone.
A few shots.......

Firstly, the dining room now features just the table and chairs whereas for almost thirty years there was a wall-to-wall shelving unit across that back wall and on the left, under the A/C unit, was a framed picture.

The lounge-room now stores (temporarily) a three-drawer filing cabinet from the study and the top half of one section of a Parker shelving/cupboard unit.

Prior to the sale there were two 2-seat leather lounges and a coffee table in here plus a large rug and a TV unit.

The living room looks particularly attractive with its expensive cardboard-box coffee tables.
Beyond, in the alcove where a round table and four chairs once sat, another fine suite of cardboard boxes allows for gracious casual dining!
The two lounge suites have been bought by the new owners and will provide us with about the only bit of comfort right up to D-Day.

Finally, my study.
Once the location of a full-width desk, the fine shelving unit (seen disassembled), a comfortable office chair and with the walls resplendent in framed posters and paintings, it now looks like the hastily-assembled quarters of a war correspondent in the Middle East.

As it was in 2004.....

Fourteen days to go.

Yamba - Our new home.

Long story short - we've been through nine homes, shortlisted down to five then shortlisted to three and finally, after starting at 9:00 AM yesterday, we chose a place at 3:00 PM and made an offer.
It was rejected so we upped it a bit and it was accepted at about 5:00 PM.

So we have placed a deposit on the house and will be moving in early June, as the current owners are away on a trip and won't return until the end of May.

Here are a few photos:-

Until tomorrow we have been staying at the Moby Dick motel.....a lovely spot right on the Clarence River and adjacent the boat harbour here in Yamba.

A few of the local fauna waiting for their afternoon fish-feed......

And as the day drew to a close, the setting sun cast a soft pink over the eastern sky.......

D-Day is set.

Five months almost to the day from when we first advertised our home for sale, contracts were exchanged last week (16th. April) and the agent's poster outside our home now sports a "Sold" sticker.

Settlement date is 30 days from the exchange and that means we have to vacate by midday on the 16th. of May.

It's a funny feeling knowing that in less than a month's time someone else will be living in what we have called home for almost thirty years.
But with autumn temperatures here in Canberra of  17 degrees maximum and 2 degrees minimum for today/tonight and Yamba being 25 degrees and 17 degrees respectively then I know where I want to be come winter!

This morning I did my regular 1.6 kilometre walk and took a photo of the autumn colours now becoming more prevalent each day.
We will miss this aspect of the seasons when we move; deciduous trees are not common on the far north coast and the change from summer to autumn goes almost unnoticed.

Canberra - Au Revoir, Adieu, Until we meet again!

Our house found a buyer yesterday and we are anticipating being in Yamba after Easter - and that means before spending another winter in Canberra.

As much as I've loved this place for three decades this coming June, I am looking forward to spending my final years, however many or few they may be, in the warmer climes of Yamba.....where every day is just another day in paradise.

I can't wait!

Yamba - Au Revoir, Adieu, Until we meet again.

Well, my five-week sojourn comes to a close this coming weekend, when the owner of the house I've been taking care of returns from an adventure in South America and a cruise from Santiago to Florida.

The opportunity given to me to spend more than a month in Yamba has reinforced my urge to live up here permanently for the rest of my days so I am keeping everything crossed that the auction of our home in Canberra this Saturday (15th.) is successful.

Today I presented the last of my "Baby Boomer Radio" programmes for the local community radio station, TLCFM 100.3, who were kind enough to offer me a fill-in spot whilst I was here.
They have been wonderful and so have the listeners, several of whom phoned the station whilst I was on air this afternoon to say how much they liked the show and expressing regret that it has come to a close.
But hopefully, not for too long, because as soon as I return I'll be looking for a vacancy in the stations programme.

Below is a "selfie" I shot outside the studio today after I'd finished.
It was done on my mobile, so is rather low-tech.
The large object in the background is the water reservoir.
We members of TLC FM 100.3 prefer to think of it as the base on which our antenna is mounted!! :)

Here are a couple of final shots.
They are of Yamba Bay, behind Whiting Beach.........

So as the sun sinks slowly in the west we say "farewell" to paradise.........for the moment, anyway. :)

Yamba - Convent Beach

One of the five beaches located at Yamba, Convent Beach is popular with surfers.
It is sandwiched between Main Beach and Pippi Beach, the latter which extends to Angourie.

The landward side of Convent is fringed by Pandanus palms. At each end of the beach are rocky outcrops.

Below are some photos taken yesterday.
All photos enlarge when clicked.

First, looking north towards the bluff that separates Convent from Main Beach.
The Pandanus palms can be seen on the left of the photo.

Below, the southern end of the beach.

 

It's a hard life living in a beach-side town. A real grim existence!

A couple of shots of myself and my sister.

  

I have just a week left here before returning to Canberra, something about which I am not exactly overjoyed.

Fingers crossed that fortune will be kind and that our new home will soon be in Yamba.

Yamba - Turners Beach

One of the four "town" beaches, Turners Beach (click on the link for the location map) is bordered on the north end by the Yamba break-wall on the mouth of the Clarence River and on the south end by an impressive sandstone cliff, above which is the bluff on which sits the lighthouse.

These photos were taken yesterday. All enlarge when clicked.

The size of the boulders in the breakwall is hard to gauge....don't scale them by the size of the gulls, because the wall is about 30 metres behind them!

The two shots below.....

The beach in the background is Whiting Beach.

It's on the river side of the breakwall, not on the coastal side, and is therefore popular with young families.

The second shot is on the beach or coastal side of the wall.

The structure on the bluff is the water reservoir.

In the lee of the breakwall at the northern end of Turners Beach.

The wall stretches out some 700 metres from this point.

Lastly, a couple of fisher-females trying their luck at the base of the wall on the riverside.

I have no idea whether they caught anything or not!

Yamba - to Brooms Head

This morning I visited the beach at Brooms Head, some 4o kilometres by road south of Yamba.
Below are some photos, but first, a location map. The Satellite view gives a better indication of the size of the village.
Brooms Head

First up, the view north.
Beyond the pine trees is the Yuragir National Park; Brooms Head actually sits within the bounds of the park.

This is apparently a very popular holiday spot for families, with two caravan parks and a host of holiday homes and cabins. There is, of course, a permanent population of maybe a hundred or so people here.

There is a small shop (a"snack shop") and a community hall which also doubles up for Sunday church services, but that's about all.
No doctor, no general store, no fuel, no pub or tavern. For those things you have to go to Maclean, some 24 kilometres away.

The triangular structure (above) supports a fresh-water shower head and a couple of taps, for washing salt and sand off one's self when ending a time at the beach.

The next two photos were taken from Brooms Head itself.
The first is the view north, with the beach hidden behind the projecting rocky headland.

This next photo is the view south from the same location, with Red Cliff (local name) being the headland seen in the distance.

A beautiful view down the coast, with the storm clouds building up over the land.