North Haven and Port Macquarie

We had a five week interlude to Sydney, Port Macquarie and surrounds from early July to mid August due to family reasons. It was weird to fly in to the chaos that is Sydney and navigate those roads (fortunately towards the end of peak hour) to the F3 northbound after being on the Stuart Highway. There is a HUGE difference in the amount of people and vehicles crammed into, or onto, these two roads. Gone are the three trailer road trains, replaced by  small sedans and Prius'. Gone is the slow pace, friendly smiles and relaxed atmosphere, replaced by people grumpy and frantic and just wanting to get home after a long day (I understand that having grown up in Sydney and also working 9-5, or 8-5 or 7 -6 or whatever was necessary). It was hard to get out of the habit of waving at other travellers and I couldn't help but wonder what people in Sydney would think if we waved as we went passed.

We had a lovely catch up with friends in Newcastle and then a couple of days in Sydney while Pop was having surgery. Sydney put on a beautiful sunny winters day for us on the one day the kids and I took a break from the hospital and we got to enjoy beautiful Dee Why. I thoroughly recommend The Beach Shed at Dee Why. I had the yummiest ever strawberry milkshake I think I've ever had and their chocolate fudge brownies are delicious too.

We stayed in the Camden Haven region while Poppy was recuperating and while some of the time was spent catching up on school work and visiting him in hospital, once he was home again we also got to play tourists. Most of the days were warm (jeans and 2 layer) and quite pleasant to be outdoors, despite being mid-winter.

I recommend The Pancake Place in Port Macquarie. You can get pancakes with sweet and savoury toppings and at lunch time they also serve crepes. Tilda's best friend and her family were visiting Port Macquarie on the last weekend of the school holidays and so we had lunch at the Pancake Place and enjoyed a nice couple of hours with our wonderful friends. It made Tilda's day, although she was sad to see Gracie go.

There are many wonderful beaches to visit and the river at North Haven is often the place to see dolphins. One day we saw 12 dolphins in two different pods. The kids loved it and the dolphins hung around fishing and playing for so long that we moved on before they did!

  A mum and bub dolphin

 North Haven Beach

Grants Beach

Two perfectly circular holes eroded in the rocks with little vignettes inside them

Sunset beginning at Grants Beach

Of course there was an obligatory visit to the Big Axe at Kew. OK, not really, as we haven't been going out of our way to visit any "big" icons of Australia. But we did go to the Big Axe at Kew so we could catch up with our great friends Michael, Melissa, Willow and Sakari on their way back north. As always, it was wonderful to see them and time flew way too fast and it wasn't long before they had to hit the road again.

We also made the most of the sunny days and Poppy's recovery and took his boat out for some family fun.

Crossing the NSW - Victorian Border (Merimbula - Genoa)

As we are doing Distance Ed through Sydney, and Tilda was still schooling, we didn't realise until quite late that Victorian schools were on holidays and accommodation was at a premium. We left Jindabyne without a real plan of where to stay, just knowing we were still heading south. When we got to Bega we started seriously looking into where to stay and found a caravan park at Merimbula that had vacancies and was reasonably priced. We set up there as our base for a couple of days.

We did a day trip to Bega to check out the Heritage Centre. It was OK, not great. Fortunately it was free. I remember going to the Bega Cheese Factory as a child and having a proper tour of the factory. You can't do anything of the sort now. The Information/Heritage Centre has a display of vintage equipment upstairs but it doesn't even clearly explain how cheese is made, or if it did, it certainly wasn't clear as I didn't find any information about it. 

That same day we also drove to Tathra to check out the historic wharf and, primarily, to meet up with our “new friends” (as Rory calls them). The wharf was interesting in that everywhere you looked there were big warning signs telling you what you couldn't do, but no signs saying why the wharf was important. Just as we were leaving I found a small bronze plaque explaining why the wharf was important... and in case you are wondering, or visit there and miss the fairly obscure sign, it is important because it is an example of the only open sea timber wharf surviving from the coastal steamer era. There are timber cattle races still on the shore-ward side, which is interesting to see.

There was a very cool playground at the foreshore at Tathra where we spent a couple of hours catching up with our friends. As always, the kids played so well together. We truly have been fortunate to meet a family travelling roughly the same way and pace as us, with all of us getting on very well together.

We also visited the Killer Whale Museum at Eden. This was quite interesting to visit. There were whale bones that were bigger than Rory! I know that whales are big but seeing the bones up close, and in relation to Rory, gave me a new perspective.

 Above Tilda's head are the jaw bones of a Blue Whale

 Rory standing next to some bones from the Humpback Whale

We moved on to stay a couple of days at Genoa. This is a great free camp just over the Victorian border. We could have fires so we got to fire up the OzPig, which was good as we could cook on it and we also made campfire cones. If you haven't enjoyed these awesome containers of goodness, I suggest you try it some time. You fill up a waffle cone with chocolate, lollies and other goodies that you want to include (if you google it you will see that people put fruit pieces and all sorts of things in them), wrap it in foil and cook on the fire coals until it is all melted and gooey. You need to be careful not to burn the cones but gosh they are good! I especially like them with caramels in the middle as they melt so deliciously! The Genoa River is lovely just there. It was very shallow in most places with lots of sand banks throughout. The kids had a great time playing there and we spent quite a few hours enjoying the river. The area was full of Bell Birds and they chimed almost constantly. I heard some campers complaining that they were too noisy! Seriously!

We travelled to Mallacoota for a day trip but given that it was Easter and part of the school holidays, the place was a zoo! The tourists (and yes, I know we are tourists but not like these ones) seemed to leave their brains at home and walked and drove in front of the car. It looked like it would be a lovely place to explore the water and surrounds but we really didn't get a good sense of it and it actually made us want to stay away. We did go to the headland and got to see a pod of dolphins swimming and playing around not too far offshore, and even though we can see them quite often at Port Stephens, I still love seeing them playing in the ocean. 

Jindabyne

It is hard to believe we had only been on the road for a month when we got to Jindabyne. It seems a lot longer than that, but still feels like a holiday and not like it is our new (temporary) lifestyle. Jindabyne was wonderful for many reasons.

Firstly, it seems kind of funny to travel a couple of hundred kilometres to camp in the same town as your next door neighbours, but that's what happened. It was lovely to see Steve and Pauline again after leaving home for a year. They truly are wonderful neighbours, just like family.

Fun at Lake Jindabyne

Secondly, the lovely family we met at Canberra came a day after us and camped near us. These guys – Michael, Melissa, Willow and Sakari – are great people to spend time with. The kids all play so well together and it is great to have adults that you click with and can easily hang out with.

Thirdly, and my favourite part, the alpine environment. I love, love, love the alpine ecosystem. I could spend all day roaming the snow grass and admiring the snow gums. From the tiny little flowers, to the plants with spiral looking leaves, to mountain streams and pools and everything in between. I could talk and talk and talk about it forever, but I know everyone would get bored and besides, I'd rather be out there enjoying it. So instead, I'll inundate this blog post with photos instead :) And if you're wondering why I don't live there if I love it so much..... I hate the cold, although after our week there I could be tempted to move. It was very cold while we were there, even though it was February. A couple of nights got down to 1-2 degrees and day times had tops of around 12 degrees up in the mountains. Jindabyne itself was slightly warmer during they day - tops of around 17.

Some beautiful finds between Perisher and Charlotte Pass

One day we went for a drive up to Charlotte Pass but it was very overcast and misty so the views weren't great. I don't think we even managed to see Mt Kosciuszko that day.

That's the Snowy River hidden by the mist and what you cant see is My Kosciuszko in the background

The next day we went to Thredbo and got all day chair lift passes. At first I wondered what we had done when we got to the top of the chair lift and couldn't see anything for the mist. I was pretty disappointed and wished we had waited another day, but the weather began to clear up.

From the top of the chair lift it is a 2km walk to the Mt Kosciuszko lookout and 6.4km to the top of Mt Kosciuszko. We walked a little way but then made the (wise) decision that neither Rory nor Tilda would be able to do the hike comfortably as it is a long, steady climb. Greg stayed with the kids while I did the 2km hike to the lookout. I think this was the first time since we left home that I did something by myself and I enjoyed it, but also felt rushed and guilty knowing that the kids were probably bored and feeling like I was taking too long. The chair lift ride took approx 15 minutes one way, and we did 3 trips in one go, so we were on it for 45 minutes straight one time. It was too cold to do that... I certainly don't recommend it in the cold! Rory sucked the drop bar and I thought he might get his tongue stuck like in the Dumb and Dumber movie.

Rory's Dumb and Dumber moment (fortunately it wasn't that cold)

We drove up to Charlotte Pass a second time with our neighbour Steve and our new friends. The weather was so much better – the sun was shining and the sky was clear. We hiked down to the Snowy River and played around there for a while. There were rocks to cross it and most of us tasted the fresh water, apart from Matilda. I thoroughly enjoyed this day. Hiking around the alpine environment, especially when it is clear and sunny (even if it was only 12 degrees), is one of my all time favourite things.

Tilda is pointing to Mt Kosciuszko (at Charlotte Pass)

Stunning Snow Gums

On the banks of the Snowy River

Our time in Jindabyne has definitely been a high point of the trip so far.

Canberra

Canberra is such a big place, with so much to see and do, that I could fill many blog posts about it, but I won't.

We stayed at Capital Country Caravan Park which is still in NSW. Again, the decision was primarily price. We had thought about Cotters Camp but the weather forecast was predicting mid 30s so we decided electricity would be good. This caravan park had a swimming pool and jumping pillow. The pool was good to have on the hot days.

We went to the War Memorial which is something Greg wanted to do. I would have liked to do it too but I opted to do the whirlwind tour with Rory, with his attention span as big as a flea. I got to see snippets, and spent quite a bit of time in the kid's area, which is actually very good. The kid's area has “an underground bunker” the kid can crawl through, dress ups with various army uniforms, a submarine with interactive panels and a helicopter with realistic (very loud) sounds, plus more. Rory enjoyed the sights and sounds and pressing buttons and Tilda learned quite a bit reading various information panels. Perhaps the best part was finding Greg's great grandfather's name on the honour roll. Greg got to place a poppy there in remembrance of him.

A must do in Canberra with kids is Questacon. Given that I am arachnaphobic I spent quite a bit of time in their spider display to try to help conquer my fear. Tilda really enjoyed it as there was a lot of different things to do and interact with. Rory enjoyed it because there were buttons to press. He seems to have this overwhelming need to press something or touch something; so much so that in one shop he walked into he said “I just want to touch something!” in a very pleading tone. It's like a compulsion for him, or perhaps that is just all 2 year olds? The interactive area where there is the free fall slide and other activities for kids, is great fun. Kids learn without even realising it.

We met our old neighbours, as in they moved away quite a few years ago, for dinner one night. It was great to see Andrew and Sarah again as we still miss them. We had dinner at The Durham in Kingston and they served the best hamburgers we've had in a very long time, possibly ever. They were even better as we went there on a Wednesday night so burgers were $10 not $19.

Matilda's favourite part of Questacon was “mummy freaking out on the giant slide” which she then changed to “the area where you put scarfs in inlets into clear air pipes and you can follow their journey until they get shot out of a point up high on the wall”. Tilda spent ages there playing with that.

Despite a very busy morning at Questacon we decided to check out the Pods and Acorns playground at the Canberra Arboretum. While the Arboretum appears to be in its infancy, the playground which is purported to have cost $3 million, was definitely a highlight. We had to pay for parking so we only paid for an hour, figuring the kid were too tired to stay long. When we arrived we were the only people there. Not long after another family with 2 boys arrived. After a while the kids started playing together and we got talking to the parents. It turned out they are another family on the road travelling... and even better, we all clicked and they are lovely people. The kids played together so well and it was so nice chatting to Michael and Melissa that we ended up staying a bit over 2 hours. It turned out they were planning to head to Jindabyne, just like we were, and we both ended up at the same caravan park in Jindabyne, camping next to each other the following week.

That's Tilda and daredevil Rory climbing all the way to the top

We also spent a day at Cockington Green. For those who haven't visited this model village, every building is built to a 1:12 scale. They have a replica of the entrance building in 1:12 at the start so it gives you some persepctive of scale. The kids loved the fairy garden and we took may photos so that we could possibly replicate some of it at home in our fairy garden (that we never really started). Each of the buildings in the main section are replicas of traditional English buildings; some of them complete with hundreds of tiles hand cut to make roofs and other structures. All of the trees a miniature versions, rather than bonsai. The attention to detail is amazing. The kids enjoyed it all. Rory especially loved the train ride. My favourite part was looking at the building styles and the hidden quirky objects hidden in the displays – like Darth Vader and Obi Wan Kanobe fighting or Dr Who and the Tardis. In one scene a dog has run off with the butcher's sausages and the butcher is chasing him with a knife.

There was a lot more we could have seen and done. I would have loved to go to the Glassworks, Greg wanted to go to see the Tom Roberts exhibit at the art gallery and I think we would have all enjoyed the museum but our days were full and it was time to keep travelling. The good part is, Canberra isn't all that far from home so we can always go back and do the things we missed out on another time.

Best bits:

Tilda - “meeting Willow and Sakari”

Rory – “Willow and Akari”

Greg – “the War Memorial”

Therese – “some of the things I learned at Questacon (like what a St Andrew's Cross spider's egg sac look like as it turns out I've always wondered what they are when I saw them and now I know) and meeting new people who turned out to become friends”

Worst Bits:

Tilda – “ants in my bed”

Rory - “having to wait 90 seconds for the train at Cockington Green to reset” (paraphrased)

Greg – “ants that got into everything in the van”

Therese – “noisy buses and school kids jumping on the jumping pillow until 10pm”