Diddly didely

We awoke to a rainy morning. We breakfasted satisfactorily at The Pines and hit the high road.

The drive back from Nowra to Tuross is a reasonable one. The highway is packed in the summer but not so bad at this time of the year. There are a few things to look out for. One is Wandandian. Apart from having a cool name there is almost nothing remarkable about this small town. Evidence of this is the entry in Wikipedia: it is four lines long. I say that there is “almost nothing remarkable” because there are two things that I will remark upon. The first is an old post office on the left as you enter Wandandian heading south. This post office, which appears now to be a house, operated between 1935 and 1979. There is an older post office further south on the left. This is a recreation of the original post office but it looks more like an old shed to me. The only fact about Wandandian that Wikipedia tells me is that postal services came here in 1860.

A couple of Wandandian Post Offices.

The most important thing about Wandandia that amuses me every time I drive through is the sign that advertises “hot didely dogs”. Now, I know that the person who designed this sign meant to say “hot diddly dogs” but because “diddly” is not really a word he had nowhere to refer to check its spelling. He (and I am sure it is a he) did not think that “didely” rhymes with “widely” and that what he wanted was “diddly” to rhyme with “fiddly”. I invariably announce to The G that I will be stopping one time for a hot didely dog and she invariably replies that the man meant hot diddly dog which allows me to remark that this is not what he wrote.

The other thing on the drive from Nowra to Batemans Bay is a plethora of pie shops. Each of these pie shops claims to have the best pies. There have been several articles on which is the best pie. One assessed 10 south coast pie emporia. It failed to consider Hayden’s pies at Ulladulla but announced that the pies from East Lynne were the best. Tripadviser begs to differ and finds Hayden’s pies to be the best: this is based on (as I write 114 reviews) so is likely to be statistically more significant than the lone reporter who did not even try them. The G and I regularly stop at Hayden’s where the spinach and mushroom pie is a definite winner. We have tested an Easy Lynne pie back to back with a Hayden’s pie and found the Hayden’s pie to be superior in all respects.

Hayden’s is the only thing to recommend Ulladulla apart from Classique Upholstery at 60 Princes Highway who are kings of their trade. They have done several jobs for us and all have been good. But in general one is not passing through Ulladulla to visit upholsterers. So, unless you want a pie the best thing to do with Ulladulla is to leave it well alone.

With its lovely blue background and hip lower case you would think that there would be a warm welcome to the bridge plaza. You would be wrong.

They missed off "no shopping".

We called into the fish shop at Batemans Bay because they sell fine salmon. They are located in a place called the Bridge Plaza. The sign above the door spells this with lower case letters in a futile attempt to be trendy and to attract punters by the score. These punters would be sorely disappointed since bridge plaza (sic) is unutterably dull apart for the seafood on offer.

The operators of bridge plaza (again, sic) are killjoys of a particularly remarkable genre as evidenced by the sign to the right of the entrance which, as you can see from the picture, seems to allow you to do nothing. We wondered whether “no shopping” had been missed off. The funniest one is no motorcycles. Now this "plaza" is entirely indoors: there must be some real weirdos in Batemans Bat if they need to put "no motorcycles" on a sign. But then Batemans Bay is like Ulladulla with little to recommend it (apart from the fish shop). 

And now I am chilling. Washed a couple of cars, had a hair cut and am ready for my dinner. What a life!!