MANILA, Philippines - It?s not in the mind or state of mind, as in harassed, bewildered, or not oneself, such as when one?s world is spinning helter-skelter.

Windang is a place?in New South Wales, Australia, about two hours south of Sydney by car. It?s in the South Coast, a region of pristine beaches, unspoiled forests and charming countryside.

I ?discovered? it while browsing a brochure map during my latest visit with my daughter Giselle. I was mentally casing the South Coast, our destination on our next road trip with Dipsy Altomonte, a confessed ?sucker for quaint towns,? who?ll go to great lengths (distances) to show visiting friends around.

?Windang,? in small letters, jumped out of the glossy page. ?We have to go there!? I exclaimed, curious to know if there was anything about the place or its name that bore any similarity with the meaning of the Pinoy slang word. Regardless of what we might find there, it would be a blast telling friends I?d been to Windang!

It?s just an aboriginal name, said my daughter, talking me out of it. She?d heard about the place as a consequence of her having uttered ?windang? while describing an extraordinarily crazy work week to a Filipino colleague whose urban Pinoy vocabulary obviously hadn?t been updated since he left Manila.

Dipsy, a longtime Sydneysider, was unaware of the Australian place or the Pinoy adjective.

Residential area

A little research revealed that Windang is located on a 2.23-square kilometer strip of land between a lake and a sea that flows out to the Pacific Ocean. It is primarily a residential area with a population of less than 2,500.

We didn?t tour Windang, we just drove through it, as its main road is a segment of the network connecting the coastal cities and towns. We were in and out in a matter of minutes, my camera missing the ?Welcome to Windang? billboard.

But the tiny suburb that?s not even always marked on the map kept the three of us comically preoccupied on the road, as we came up with odd, intriguing place names we?ve encountered. Curiously, many began with W.

There?s Woolloomooloo, an inner-city suburb of Sydney near Kings Cross, the red-light district. Just outside the city, there?s Wattamolla, where Giselle and her friends had gone bushwalking and seen an echidna a few months ago. In 1996, I and three newspaper colleagues passed by Wollombi, a town resembling a Western-movie set, en route to a wine-tasting tour in the Hunter Valley.

As Dipsy, Giselle, and I made our way through the South Coast, road signs yielded more W names: Wombarra, Woonona, Warrawong, Warilla. More were on the map we consulted every now and then: Wongawilli, Woronora, Werri Beach.

By noon we were in Wollongong, a major South Coast city, better known to Filipinos as home to Fil-Aussie creative writer Merlinda Bobis, who earned her PhD at the University of Wollongong and is now a lecturer there.

Wagga Wagga sort of has a sentimental value for being one of Giselle?s earliest project sites (her work as an environmental scientist takes her to different places). When she first told me three years ago that she was driving down to Wagga Wagga, I thought the name was a term of endearment for the place, if not a joke. You see, in our teens, my sisters and I had a nickname for flared and palazzo pants: wagawaga, apparently derived from maluwag.

To set the record straight and abort any further ribbing from me, Giselle e-mailed a photo of Wagga Wagga airport. Later during another visit, I?d caught a performance of an ?Australian Idol? contestant from Wagga Wagga. A Melburnian friend explained that wagga is the aboriginal word for crow and, therefore, the double mention means that the place has a big population of the black bird.

Scene of a fight

Windang means ?scene of a fight,? according to the library website of Wollongong which, in turn, means ?sound of the sea.?

Non-W names were no less intriguing: Unanderra, Ulladulla, Jamberoo, Gerringong, Minnamurra and Coolangatta (sounds like a no-no in Bikol cooking).

Like credits at the end of a movie, these names rolled by as we moved on, interspersed with typical English ones like Scarborough, Stanwell Park, Fairy Meadow, Campbeltown, Clifton, Moss Vale. One sign pointed to Blackbutt Forest. You could say, that got us... er, windang.

?Today?s show was brought to you by the letter W and by the number 3,? chuckled Giselle, a proud ?Sesame Street? alumna, on our way back to the city.

Our South Coast drive took us to four must-stops: Stanwell Park, where cliffs and art galleries were a feast for the eyes; Sea Cliff Bridge along the Grand Pacific Drive linking Sydney to the Southern Highlands and the South Coast; Kiama, the town where one of Dipsy?s daughters had her wedding two years ago; and Berry, a country town with charming antiques, arts and crafts shops blending well with trendy cafés.

In Kiama, we lined up alongside other tourists around the barrier fencing off the town?s main tourist attraction, the blowhole. It?s a sea cave formed over the years by the crashing of the waves on the cliff and which spews water like a geyser when the seas are rough.

Giselle and I had our cameras trained on the blowhole, hoping for at least one big splash, but all we got were a few puny spits. I might have waited some more, had Dipsy not warned that, given that it had been an hour since our last stop, something else was about to blow?her bladder.

Finally, like a cherry on top of a sundae, Berry was Dipsy?s prizeafter a long day of driving. In one of the shops, this boss of her own advertising-graphic design agency found a new addition to her sleek waterfront condo?s black-and-white-themed décor.

Two weeks earlier, as our joint birthday celebration (we mark ours a day apart) Dipsy took us to her other favorite quaint town, Berrima, in the Southern Highlands. It is billed historic, having been established during the era of expansion of New South Wales, and it looks like a preserved colonial village, complete with a courthouse, correctional center and jail. Here you?ll also find fine art galleries, as well as wineries, ?gourmet? jams, teas, and lollies (candies), and exquisite alpaca clothing boutiques.

The surprise of the day was a highly recommended vegetarian restaurant off the main highway, a big log-cabin structure in the middle of nowhere, aptly named Zen Oasis.

On the return drive, we stopped in Bowral to cool down in the lookout where Dipsy took her sister, Metro editor Ester Dipasupil, and their brother Oscar, two years ago. We must have sauntered into the wrong clearing in the bush because we ended up on a cliff edge without any barrier. I was tempted to proofread the ?lookout? sign, splitting the word and adding an exclamation point, to caution other bushwalkers.

In between our two southern-exposure weekends, Giselle and I breezed through the Northern Beaches, a region of nearly 20 beaches located north of Sydney CBD. I wanted to see Long Reef Beach, where Giselle shot the photo for the cover of my mother?s collection of articles.

Why not start from the top, suggested a friend of hers. So we drove to the northernmost suburb, Palm Beach, an hour from the city. The scenery alone was worth the trip, but the real adventure was the 40-minute hike up a narrow stone stairway leading to the Barrenjoey Lighthouse 113 meters above sea level.

The beaches are accessible by bus. The closest to Giselle?s North Sydney neighborhood are Balmoral, where we espied two weddings one Saturday afternoon, and the more popular Manly, where she?d taken me tandem parasailing two years ago.

?Go out of town,? Qantas GM Honeybee Hubahib had suggested when I purchased my ticket in early March. Yes, that?s the plan, I?d told her. Especially since this was going to be my birthday holiday she (incidentally, also March-born) earnestly wanted this particular trip to be unlike any of my previous ones.

On my return I happily reported that it was as she had wished. But I couldn?t resist teasing her: Have you ever been to Windang?