Safety, Sapphire and Hungry - beach that is

Recently I went on a family history chasing excursion to Macksville and other points of interest, staying in Coffs Harbour with Gwen, now 93, (not bad for a lady with one kidney and one eye)who plays Spider Solitare two sets of cards like me, and trying to match my scores. I had showed her the trick how to win every game. I commuted to Macksville each day to look through the Nambucca News from 1948 to 1974, finding lots of interesting snippets. The only decent place to eat in Macksville is 'Short Order' and their Haloumi and pea fritters made a great lunch. I did try Marilynns but their coffee was blah and I ordered a sweet potato toasted turkish and it came with bacon, my fault for not checking. I did go back another morning thinking I would see if they could make a better breakfast coffee and was going to have some fruit toast till I noticed they use spreadable margarine and I made a hasty exit back to short order for a great coffee and fruit muffin.

At the weekend Gwen had visitors, so I took myself back to Wardell to stay with a 4th cousin, we share two family connections and had a great time comparing our family tree and even though generationa apart have similar likes and dislikes. On the way, at the Grafton short-cut turn off, the sun was setting, and I had to make a quick grab for the camera, wished I could have stopped a few seconds earlier but trees were blocking the view and the colours had faded fast.

After my weekend away I had to drive back south, the libraries are closed on Mondays but I had booked to look at the Nambucca News at their offices in the afternoon, so I went exploring, first stop for some breakfast was at 'on the Bite' at Maclean, fruit toast and a good coffee. (My hosts had gone to work early). I had noticed Safety Beach near Woolgoolga on my way the first time but didn't have time to stop. Not sure how safe it is for swimming but its a spot worth a stop just for the pebbles on the beach. I had to pick up a few, people say you can't collect things off the beach but I rationalise that by thinking, I don't take the fish from the ocean so the very few things I find must be less damaging to the environment.

I did take some photos of the pebbles and seaweeds at Sapphire Beach, this is another beach I have never explored before and walking back from the beach to my car,I was accompanied by a bush turkey.

It must be fifty years since I last went to Hungry Head, but I stopped just for the memory, this photo looks south to Nambucca Heads and the photo north was just as interesting but unfortunately Blogger only lets me put in five photos. So that is an excuse to do a new blog soon.

The Prado in Brisbane

When you aren't travelling to exotic places, its good to be able to see those places from your home town. The 'Portrait of Spain (Masterpieces from the Prado is here. You walk into the exhibition and are confronted by a giant mural of the Prado gallery, which changes perspective as you move, it was amazing but my eyes were hurting just looking at it. Wished they had a photo for sale but none. The paintings opened my eyes on Spanish Royalty in the past centuries, so inbred they had mal-occlusion of the jaw and serious eye problems. They didn't want anyone more beautiful than themselves around them, so kept dwarfs and others for their pleasure. That turned me off a lot of the painting showing these types of people dressed up in fancy refinery. The photo above was full length and the detail on the dress was amazing. That said, there were lots of very interesting landscapes, religious paintings (one painting of baby Jesus has him with a long second toe and other saints had a second long toe as well) still life and mythology.

One of my favourites, The Goddess Fioro c 1697. Such a lighthearted change from the Religious saints

You will need to see the Pottery Vendor by de Goya (1778) for yourself to appreciate the detail of the two ladies buying from a seller with an old lady sitting there. In the carriage is some noble lady. Loved the servant in white on the back of the carriage.

This was another favourite "still life with chocolate service" by Luis Metendez 1770. Perhaps I should have gone to the Sala cafe after the exhibit to have a hot chocolate drink. Don't think they would have served it in a cup like this one.

This painting of grapes from 1630 is beautiful, but a different one where the grapes look like glass was not available in a post card. Like all exhibits they never really have for sale the pictures you really like, I could have bought the book but just settled on some postcards to remind me what I have seen. If you get the chance, go to see it rather than relying on my amateur photography of my postcards.