Bathtub Derby - Dunny Derby

These early 70's sports were born on the Central Coast and held at various venues until banned by people with hefty insurance premiums and good taste? - Bastards! 
Basically the Bathtub Derby involved racing bath tubs fitted with outboard motors and was usually held at the old Aquatic Club in Gosford , the Dunny Derby involved racing outdoor dunny's fitted with wheels on a local football field somewhere , maybe the originators went on to design the Porta - Loo .....
 I'm still looking for some dunny derby pics so if you have some please contact me!

Narara 83-84

In the early 80's a giant music festival was held across the lake at Old Sydney Town.
The Narara concert had attracted near 30,000 people from all over Australia , 1000's of lost concertgoers were stranded at the Narara Railway station believing the concert was there! The 3 day event was a campout affair on a massive scale not seen in Australia featuring an all Australian bill including Austen Tayshus as M.C and the highlight of the event was the Angels playing with a blood red full moon rising over the stage behind them.
The event was repeated the following year , but due to poor weather and a mismatched international bill of artists the numbers were down on the previous concert . This event was marred by the unfortunate death of an English tourist in a dam used by all to swim in*.
So ended what I believe to be the greatest outdoor concerts of all time , it was the last burnout of the 70's rockers and hippies , nothing would come close to Narrara ever again.
The Central Coast has always been the home of the outdoor music festival with concerts being held at Ourimbah in the 60's and the Glenworth Valley concerts of the late 90's - early 2000.

*This was the official blurb that was posted in the local news , but years later I met someone who was camped very close to the tourist who died , this is his account of what actually happened: " Everyone was watching the antics of this guy who was obviously a long way from home and was taking a lot of illegal substances , he came home and fell asleep in his tent face down , during the night it rained heavily and because his tent was erected on a slope the back end of the tent filled with rain water , the poor guy drowned in his intoxicated slumber "

Woy Woy Shark Attack

In 1834 a local boy Ron Inman 14 , was attacked and killed by a large shark in Phegans Bay , for a long time locals talked of large sharks entering our Venice like waterways to breed and rest.
In fact due to local paranoia in the early 70's famed shark hunter Vic Hislop was called to the area to search for evidence - the result .......... nothing !
In C. Swancotts' book Good Old Woy Woy he mentions another attack in the channel between Rileys Island and St Hueberts Island when a young local lad was swimming across the channel with his younger brother on his shoulders when the younger one was plucked off by a shark and killed sometime in the 30's

Skeleton found on Blackwall Mountain

Click to enlarge

In the early 80's a skeleton was discovered by local kids on Blackwall Mountain , no identifying items were found with the corpse except for a hand full of bullet cases and a Ryde - Eastwood RSL badge.
Police were unable to use the membership number on the old badge to identify the remains as the Club had lost records for the year the badge was issued ( 1964 I think ) To this day his identity remains unknown.
He wasn't the only person to meet an untimely fate on Blackwall Mountain , on a rock wall behind the town water tank there is a plaque dedicated to a worker who was killed during it's construction , judging by the inscription it looks as if it was made by his co - workers , also it has been added to with another name as an afterthought or later on , maybe someone could email me with the actual story on this second name ( see above image )
It is also rumored that Nelson St in Umina was named after him.

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