www.Muggaccinos.com   The Bullsheet

Friday 13th, Sat 14th and Sunday 15 Aug, Tour de Wyong weekend, staying at  Grand Hotel, Wyong Central Coast - opposite familiar Wyong train station.

• Tour de Wiseman's Ferry ANZAC long w'end attracted 29 starters in late May.  Amidst a burst of late Autumn warmth, our river side camping on the banks of the Hawkesbury River was balmy and brill, with 3 days of beaut cycling.

• Tour de Macarthur attracted 28 crew in early June, albeit the marvellous Indian Summer's days 'came with an early morn' Picton frost. 

To date 21 crew have responded in the affirmative to participate in T de W:

Friday/Saturday nights:  Tornado, Marcel, Nerida, Kaza, Bank Teller, Lesley, Matt, Yamaha/Linda, Steve Sullivan, Whippet, Gene aka Koala Bear

Sat night only:  Martin, Tony, Arno, ToothFairy, Pacific Pete, Jen, Mark Carrington aka LongHaul

Pacific Pete has booked into the Strathavon Motel  (300m east of Grand Hotel) 31 Boyce Ave Wyong (02) 4352 1161  www.strathavon.com.au, 'cause reputedly our pub has a band playing 'til 11pm.  Mark Carrington is staying at the Wyong Motel. 
ToothFairy is driving-up for Sat ride.

Name:  Bernie BobCat (i)   I want to stay both Friday and Saturday nights. (ii)  I want to stay Friday night only. (iii) I want to stay Saturday night only. (A) I want a single bed. (B) I want a double bed, ‘cause Fanny Footloose is also attending. Others who want to stay in my room are Mary Mongoose & Wally Wombat. (a) I don’t care if 3 or 4 others are in the room, ‘cause $20 per night is a priority. (b) I only want one other in my room ‘cause $30 p/n don’t faze me, and I am self-conscious in crowds. (c) I only want 2 others in my room @ $23 per head per night. (I)  I will give Kaza $20 deposit by end-July. (II) I will give Bank Teller $20 deposit by end-July. I understand that I will get my $20 deposit back if I have to bail-out at last minute, unless you are out-of-pocket due to rain and 'no-shows'. I will liaise with Kaza to finalize my room buddies. I will pay my room costs on the day I arrive, 'cause I heard the last Mugg who didn't shell-out early, got tar 'n feathered where tar 'n feathers aren't a good look. I will talk to Trevor to work-out our rides for Sat and Sunday which take us north - pursuant to map on rHS - except the blue bits.

1st Map - Nth of Wyong 
2nd Map - Wyong Tuggerah Lakes  
3rd Map -  Wyee area

4th Map - Wider Wyong
 

URL -  9am Saturday 76.5km clockwise ride - ETR 1:10pm:

1st leg  - 12.5km:   Grand Hotel  Wyong, Jilliby, Dooralong (10 min - Sag Stop)
2nd leg - 33km:      Mandalong, Wyee, Budgewoi Sailing Club (40 min - Nosh Stop)
3rd leg  - 31km:      Norah Head, The Entrance, Killarney Vale, Berkeley Vale, Grand Hotel Wyong

URL -  9am Sunday 60km clockwise ride - ETR 12:20pm 

1st leg  - 15.2km:     Grand Hotel  Wyong, Hue Hue Rd, Wyee (10 min - Sag Stop)
2nd leg - 16.5km:     Wyee Point, Toukley (40 min - Nosh Stop)
3rd leg  - 28.5km:     The Entrance, Killarney Vale, Berkeley Vale, Grand Hotel Wyong

Whippet’s succinct rap-up of last Sunday, 8 August, Harley Hangout, Woy Woy and Pearl Beach & back to Woy Woy - 85.5km

Rolling out of Hornsby on a warming late Winter's morn on schedule were:
Rolf aka Malvern Star, Mark Carrington aka LongHaul, ToothFairy, Peter Tuff aka The Professor, Matt aka Printer, Adam 'n Eve, Scribe, Dave Rickards, Richard Anderson, Heineken & Whippet.
Gene aka Koala Bear commenced at Brooklyn to protect a dodgy knee and joined us at Pearl Beach, as did Sarah aka Physio. 

Whippet’s history lesson about something near ‘n dear - beer.  Which highlights how two epitaphs can look differently on a dead man who'd influenced James Squire and who Bennelong Point got named after.

Some Muggs met recently to celebrate a Yamaha's b'day.  Fittingly, t'was at a Brewhouse.  That BeerHall promoted Chuck Hahn's James Squires boutique beer range.  But who was James Squire?  And who were his drinking folk?

The old Halvorsen boat shed on the Parramatta River, just west of Kissing Point Ryde was once the site of  James Squire’s Kissing Point Brewery.

It is also the last known resting place of two famous indigenous Australians Messrs Bennelong & Nanbaree.  Bennelong’s name was given to the site of Sydney Opera House.  He died in 1813 at the age of 49 years & Nanbaree died in 1821.  Both are buried in what was once James Squire’s orchard, now a park at the end of Watson St, in Douglas St.  (From the Sydney Gazette January 9, 1813):

    “Benelong died at Kissing Point now Putney.  Of this veteran champion of the native tribe little favourable can be said.  His propensity to drunkenness was inordinate; & when in that state he was insolent, menacing & overbearing.  In fact he was a thorough savage, not to be warped from the form & character that nature gave him by all the efforts that mankind could use” 

The Sydney Gazette patently bemoaned Bennelong.  But to highlight that irony and divergent interpretation aren't exclusively modern day phenomena, below is a much more sympathetic analysis of Bennelong’s life by contemporary scholar Tim Flattery who wrote the below review for James Squire who clearly respected him. 

    "Bennelong was a man confident in his culture, who was from the first, unwilling to bend to the will of others he remained the brilliant, mercurial & distinctly ‘other’ kind of being that James Squire had met & admired some twenty-five years earlier."

Question:  Why did Whippet provide the afore-mentioned account of a few drinking coves from yesteryear whose names live on today for different reasons?  One Bennelong and the other a yummy boutique beer. 
Answer:   To highlight that not a lot has changed about human behaviour over the last 150 years and that one person can look back upon someone gone as a scoundrel.  And another can see all the favourable qualities of a villain.