I decided to ride to Huskisson via Gerringong and Nowra. The alternatvie would have taken me through Berry.
Both Berry and Gerringong are popular towns on the South Coast. For some reason certain towns fall into favour and others don’t. I stopped in Gerringong at an old time Milk Bar. These shops where every where when I was growing up. All shopping centres in suburban shopping centres at least one Milk Bar. Milk Bars Every country town also had They served a range of good and bad food and goods: Milk Shakes (naturally), Hamburgers ts (most with the ‘lot’) Ice Cream and fried chips and Dim Sims (what was them, I am not sure). They also sold cigarettes and the daily newspaper when the nearby Newsagent closed at 5.00 pm.
Most Milk Bars were owned and operated by Greek Families with a seemingly unlimited supply staff, all related and willing to work all hours. The Gerringong Milk Bar, turned out to be owned and operated by a Greek family. On the day of my visit Dad and two sons were holding the fort. I made the comment that you don’t see these shops in Sydney now. They agreed and the old man said: “that is because the young people don’t want to work”. I suspect the demise of the Milk Bar is not as simple as that. Young people do work in all sorts of retail food shops at all hours e.g. McDonalds and coffee shops.
My route took me past 7 Mile Beach. It seems that a lot of beaches in Australia are named after their length. There are also a lot of creeks with mileage names e.g. 5 Mile Creek, which I assume is the distance that the creek is from somewhere e.g. Nowra. I can’t recall any other country where this distance based naming convention has taken hold. It is probably preferable that Bondi Beach is Bondi Beach rather the One Half Mile Beach. I don’t even that Americans will their tendency to name streets and avenues numerically, would wish to change Malibu Beach to 5 Mile Beach.
The road behind 7 Mile beach was one the areas hit by the mini tornado on the 22nd of February, the day before I headed off. Amazing damage to trees. Check out the photo
I arrived in Huskisson late in the afternoon. I have not been there for over 35 years. Amazing sand and clear water. In 10 minutes I decided to stay at least a day.
billrider2013 