Monday Mystery Photo – Last time Norway

Every second Monday, I post a photo of a ‘mystery’ location, and sometimes a mystery object. 

I invite you to leave a comment if you think you know the location, or what the mystery object might be.

 

This Week’s Monday Mystery Photo

Can you guess the location?

If you guess correctly, I will link back to your blog in a post the following Monday, when the answer is revealed.

Comments will be released later in the week, (Thursday Australian E.S.T.), so as not to spoil the fun for latecomers to this post.

The Mystery photo this week comes from Amy P from the Blog Tesserolo.  Many thanks to Amy for the use of her photo.

If you also have a travel photo you would like featured on Monday Mystery, please leave a comment or contact me on my email which you will find on the Contact page.

You can also find my email by hovering over my Gravatar and viewing my Profile information.

Last Time on Monday Mystery

Ted from recipereminiscing.wordpress.com has been a very welcome regular commenter on Monday Mystery, but his gorgeous photo comprised the very last MMP for 2017.

It was of course, the very famous Vigeland Sculpture park in Oslo, Norway.

  Thanks Ted for the photo!

This photo was taken on New Year’s Eve some years back, and strangely enough, both Ted and Myself were at the park on that very night!

Although we did not know of each other then!!! The snow fell right on midnight following the annual Fireworks display lighting up the sky.

A wonderful moment for a traveler in Norway!

Congratulations to Drake for correctly guessing the location.

Who will guess the location this time?

Something I do Ponder About

– Amanda

Forestwood.designs on Instagram

Forestwoodfolk on Twitter

Forestwoodfolk on Pinterest

 

Monday Mystery Photo – Last time Poland

Each Monday, I post a mystery photo, or occasionally a mystery object.

I invite you to leave a comment, if you think you know the location, or what it is. If you guess correctly, I will link back to your blog when the answer is revealed, the following Monday.

Guest Submissions are very welcome! You can find my Email at my Gravatar if you have a photo you would like to submit.

This week’s photo comes from Hanne Sieber’s collection, and you can find her blog here.

Thanks so much for your guest submission, Hanne. What a great photo!

This week’s Mystery Photo

---

Last Week’s Mystery Photo – seen below

The selfie was mine, but the iconic location it seems, was known to many people, and not just for its unusual structures, but also because of its significant history. I am standing at the shipyards in Gdansk,at a place where, in 1980, ordinary workers stood up to a powerful nation on earth; they defied the iron fist of the Soviet Union, destroying the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe. It was here that people power formed a union called Solidarity, led by an electrician, named Lech Walesa. As a student of modern History, Walesa was a hero of mine, and although he did become President of the new independent Poland, he later retired from politics to a quieter life, and still lives in a house overlooking the shipyards, today. Here is a link to more of his story:

“>

This was an incredibly exciting and difficult era in time. I was told of a Grandmother, who had worked and saved hard, for years upon years in order to buy a house, and when she had saved almost enough money, independence from the old Soviet order came to Poland. But with economic independence, came the financial shock that the only thing her savings could now buy, was one pair of shoes!! Soul destroying? Such was the price of freedom!

Here are the list of bloggers who correctly identified the country/location:-

Yvette from Priorhouse Blog

Pooja from Stories from Europe

Mel and Suan from Traveling Matters to Us

TidiousTed From Recipe Reminiscing

Gerard from Oosterman Treats

Drake from ledrakenoir

Dina from The World According to Dina

Leggy Peggy

Polish Revolution – Something sobering and inspirational to Ponder About

Walking on Straddie with Maddie

It started out with Maddie wanting to go to Straddie….

Maddie was Swedish, in high school, and on an student exchange to experience Aussie culture, language, and the few contemporary traditions, we Australians have. She wanted to see Straddie, aka Stradbroke Island, a secluded beach paradise off the coast of north eastern Australia. This is how we came to meet Bill, but more about that later.

As Australians are oft to shorten names, Stradbroke Island is affectionately called Straddie, even though it’s name has anything but humble beginnings, being named as it was, after the British Lord of Stradbroke.

Aboriginal communities have long existed on Straddie, as has a plethora of wildlife and flora, including the much-loved koala, kangaroo and ‘Gin–gin,’ otherwise known as a Grass tree.

Koala

Add to this, miles of pristine white sandy surf beaches, and you have a swimming meccas for locals, and occasionally, sharks.

“Maddie” wanted to see “Straddie”, so we booked in at the Backpacker’s  Manta lodge, situated just a few kilometres back from the famous Point Lookout, and took an early morning ferry to Dunwich. This was actually called the ‘Flyer’ and the fare also included the bus to our lodge, which has a convenient timetable that coincides with the arrival of the ferries.

The beach from the porch of the Manta Backpackers Lodge

 Desperately hoping the name Adder Rock was not synonymous with the highly venomous snake, the Death Adder, we arrived at Manta lodge, an accredited scuba dive centre and above average Backpackers in a 4 share room. This backpacker is in an excellent location, step outside and you are on the beach, also reasonably close to Point Lookout by road, but we chose to walk along the beach for the scenic journey over the rocks and beach verges.

4WD vehicles are permitted on the beach here

Gunter’s point where perhaps a German tourist was not careful enough?

If you visit Stradbroke and stay here, I would caution you that the beach trail to Point Lookout takes over an hour, and we found later that it is more direct to take the road, or catch the bus, but, of course, it was a lot less scenic. You can also find toilets along the way at Cylinders beach Caravan Park and a small shop and Post Office. We ever saw a Beach wedding taking place. High Heels in the sand… can you imagine the difficulties???

A nice diversion along the way is the Point Lookout Hotel, good for a hearty/ liquid lunch, or refreshment, or two… the view from there is simply amazing, from anywhere in the hotel. After we were suitably refreshed, we continued on, exploring the headland at Point Lookout, named by Captain Cook as he sailed along the East Coast in 1770.

The views from Point Lookout afford amazing views along Thirty Mile Beach…..or or was it Sixty MileBeach…. plenty of it anyway!   Take the Gorge walk for a long and very scenic view of this cove and the turbulent surf hitting the headland in front of the Surf club and you will see views like this….

As for amenities, Point Lookout has a number of eateries to suit a variety of palettes.  You will find a small collection of avant-garde gift and boutique fashion shops. Their opening times are various, but you could be lucky. One that caught my eye seem so ‘Straddie’…. laid back…. not always open and simple but good… the Fresh local Seafood shop called “The Prawn Shack.”

But this is where Bill comes in, our local tour guide – the quiet achiever Bill who would take us on a 4 hour 4WD tour of the Island.

As I am linking to Restless Jo’s Monday Walks,  I will talk more about Bill’s fabulous adventures in another post.

Some Walking with Restless Jo on her Monday walks – lots to Ponder About