Wilhelmina Street

The big sandstone hole of the Harbour View site, December 2017

Wilhelmina Street is a quiet little street in residential West Gosford. It’s also very steep and certain parts of it has good views of the Brisbane Water, including the little-known part called Fagans Bay. (Locals, I mean Fagans Bay not Phegans Bay.)

Perched in one of those view spots, on the corner of Batley Street, is the Harbour View building site. At this stage, as digging down through all that sandstone still goes on, it’s more of an excavation site. But once the site is bottom level of the ground has been fully prepared, the building can start its climb towards the sky.

Earthmover at work at the bottom, December 2017

We can see here what looks like the bottom level of the site being graded or perhaps the spoil piled up ready to be taken away.

In the background and in the bottom right corner, we can see the yellow caps on the tops of the poured foundation pylons. Also in the background, at the top edge of the photo, we can see a beautiful rich patch of sandstone in the sandstone cliff that forms the eastern wall of this site. It’s a shame such a beautiful colour will be covered up but it’s unavoidable, of course.

Breaking up the hard stuff, December 2017

Meanwhile, over at the western wall of the site, breaking up hard ground is hard to do, unless you have the right machine.

That’s the north wall in the background and I stood atop the cliff that is the southern wall to take this photo.

Two sites for the price of one in this photo, December 2017

On the left side of this photo, in the upper half, we can see the top half of Batley Street and the blue clad building site on the corner of Batley Street and Donnison Street West. The houses behind the back fence of the site, the northern side, run along Donnison Street West and there are houses opposite them and then the trees we can see along the top edge of the photo are on the steep slope of Presidents Hill. There’s a lookout (US, an overlook) at the top of Presidents Hill, with a lovely long view down the length of Brisbane Water. So far, I haven’t found a viewpoint up there that overlooks Gosford itself.

(The lookout is at the end of Hely Street.)


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Batley Street

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Come back on Friday afternoon for another post.

Batley Street

Directing traffic, corner of Batley Street and Donnison Street East, December 2017

Lollipop man keeping workers, drivers and pedestrians safe with the road half blocked by the concrete pour. Donnison Street West is a fairly narrow backstreet so having active building sites on it is tricky. Luckily, not much traffic uses it, mostly residents and those hungry for hot chips at the Red Rooster in Hely Street.

Pouring concrete up high at Batley Street, December 2017

Two yellow concrete trucks and the white truck that transports and anchors the big mobile concrete-pourer arm. The pourer arm soaring up to the top of the building and looping down to pour the concrete where it's needed.

Guiding the nozzle to the right spot, December 2017

The worker on the right is using the hand-held controls to guide the pouring nozzle at the end of the pouring arm to just the right spot for an even concrete pour. As he was doing that, it started to sprinkle with rain again so I hope the pour went well.

Industrial West Gosford in the distance, residential West Gosford in the foreground, December 2017

Follow the wet grey line of Donnison Street West through the photo to where it stops. Just beyond that, we can see a lot of white buildings running across the photo and back to the edge of the building site. Those white buildings are along Manns Road which is also in West Gosford, just as this building site is. West Gosford’s small residential area runs from Riou Street, beside the railway line, to Racecourse Road. The rest is commercial (from the racecourse to the southern end of Manns Road) and light industrial stretching the length of Manns Road. Beyond Manns Road is Kariong and the long tree-covered ridge that stretches down the western side of the Brisbane Water to Woy Woy, fringed by the narrow suburbs of Point Clare, Tascott and Koolewong.

(To avoid confusing industrial Manns Road with the shops and pubs of Mann Street, just remember that “Mann Street is main street”.)


 Extra

West Gosford's changing skyline from Fagans Bay, December 2017

The changing skyline of West Gosford, from Fagans Bay.

Above the blue mesh of the Batley Street building site, locals may recognise the top half of that strange house known locally as “the Castle”. In the middle of the photo is the yellow crane on the Harbour View site in Wilhelmina Street. The yellow crane on the right is on the Vue site in Kendall Street.

No Activity

Mann Street between police station & Telstra building, December 2017

Still nothing happening on this steep narrow site beside the police station on Mann Street. I remember seeing a scaffolding tower on this site several months ago but I can’t tell you which month. Not long after that, the site was cleared but, as we can see in this photo, nothing has happened since then.

Henry Parry Drive, overlooking the water, December 2017

This site has been inactive for years. I think it may even be as long as 10 years since it was cleared. Does anyone know exactly what year it was cleared?

The site is on Henry Parry Drive and has a good view of Brisbane Water and may also have a view into Caroline Bay so it must be worth a fortune. So why is there such a long delay?