End of term

The girls finished another school term on Friday so are now on 2 weeks' holiday. For Laura it was the end of 'normal' school as her HSC exams start after the holiday and then she's finished for good. There was an end of Year 12 event for the students and parents on Friday night at one of the nearby RSL clubs which we attended. The last week of school also included the traditional 'muck-up' day where the Y12's generally play pranks and throw a lot of water around. The day actually spread throughout the week and the students seemed to be quite creative with their disruptions without exceeding the restrictions placed on them.

Sue and I had been invited by one of the couples from our social tennis to a barbie on Saturday lunchtime which was very pleasant and our first for the 'season'. It was a sunny and hot weekend which was lovely and we went on a bike ride down to Manly and back early on Sunday morning, to get into some practice before the longer ride next weekend.

I have also been preparing for my new member of staff who starts this week. This is my first 'real' employee for the business here and one of the main requirements that I need to have in place before we can apply for a permanent visa, which - if everything else falls into place - should be possible in a year's time.

Trivia night

Sue & I attended a trivia night organised by the girls' school on Saturday night - as with all schools, they have a 'P&C' committee (Parents & Citizens Association) who organise the occasional evening event, although this is the first we had attended. We had arranged a table of 4 couples, only one of whom were Aussies, so we had a distinct disadvantage on some questions and we're sure we were also up against some tables using mobile phones and Internet connections!

Many of the questions were challenging and although our table didn't finish last, we weren't far from it! The quiz was organised and run by an external group of people and the lady MC was quite strident and 'full on' so we felt verbally battered by the end of the evening! There was also a range of silent auction items around the hall - mostly sporting - including a signed Don Bradman bat, but unfortunately we'd hadn't brought enough money for the opening bid of $1,300 (about £600 at the current exchange rate)!

Still, the school must have made a lot of money for the evening (which will mostly go towards the canteen renovations) and we had a good social evening with the other couples.

Two years on

Today marks the second anniversary of our arrival here at the start of our 'big adventure' (and this blog has also just short of the 200 post mark as well). Saturday has been much warmer than recently, with blue skies and temperatures in the 20s again, so that the heating is finally having a rest and the balcony doors got an 'open airing' during the day - a sure sign that spring is now here and summer can't be far away!

Caroline was out all day, working and then seeing friends, and Laura was off to a party in the evening, so Sue and I took Rebecca to Narrabeen to revisit our first house and neighbourhood. We had a walk on Turimetta beach and then on the new path around the headland to Warriewood beach. This is part of the new Sydney coastal path which has recently been opened and is a mapped route from Barrenjoey Head in the north to Cronulla in the south, following the coast and the beaches as closely as possible - a distance of 100km and an expected walk of 7 days.

The start of Spring?

I had a double-dose of being spoilt over the past few days, with my birthday followed closely by Father's Day yesterday. I took the obligatory 'day off work' for my birthday as Sue and I had planned to go on a Hawkesbury River cruise, but the good Spring weather at the start of the week had gone and although the day was dry we decided to postpone the trip.

We therefore explored a few areas of the inner harbour that we hadn't been to before and then had a Thai lunch in Neutral Bay, followed by a drink at The Oaks, which is the first time we'd been back there since 1993! Caroline was then working in the evening and Laura was also off shopping for several hours, but we managed to fit in some present opening and birthday cake before they had to go!

The weather on Saturday was terrible, with torrential rain for 24 hours but it had remarkably cleared again for Sunday as the day dawned sunny and warm. Although Spring has officially arrived, the temperatures are still low here and the nights remain chilly - it's been reported that August has been the coldest month in Sydney for over 60 years (which is probably all down to us being here now!).

After last year's 'family day out' on Father's Day it didn't work out that way yesterday as Caroline was again working at her store and Laura had studying to catch up on, so Sue and I coaxed Rebecca to join us for another exploration to the south of the city. We followed the route out of the city that we had taken with the motorhome several years ago but then turned into the Royal National Park (the second oldest in the world).

There are a number of roads crossing the park, either across the high ground or through the valleys and we also visited one of the beaches which had wild waves crashing in. There was lots of bushwalking potential here, but we continued south along the coast road, stopping at a scenic viewpoint where there were numerous hang-gliders and parasailers jumping off the cliffs and floating out over the sea.


We then drove along (and walked) the new sea cliff bridge (seen in the photo above) which was built to avoid the regular rock falls onto the original road and is now a popular location for car advertisements! We had reached our furthest point when we had another 'petrol problem' for the second week running - we had noticed that the petrol gauge wasn't moving from half full, so we weren't sure how much we had left and had to hunt down a petrol station to make sure, before heading back into Sydney.

Port Macquarie

Last weekend saw Clive and I driving north up the Pacific Highway to Port Macquarie, around 400 kms away. Clive has a new customer there who wanted a meeting with him and, in return, was offering the family a couple of nights in their hotel FOC. If we had known how far away P.M. is, we may have sent Clive on the train on his own.…

Laura and Caroline were not interested in making the trip, so we told Rebecca she could bring a friend. She chose Robyn, the Scottish friend who had taken her away for a weekend previously - to the Hunter Valley - so it was good to return the favour.

Clive had arranged to meet up with The Observatory hotel’s marketing manager and owners once we got there in the early afternoon. We set off at 8am, having dropped Caroline at school, ad were soon on The Pacific Highway, which is a very, very, long straight road, but quiet. It was a pleasure to drive along for the first three hours, the only problem being accelerator feet going to sleep through lack of movement!

However, then we had a worrying half hour when the petrol light had been on and there was no garage for miles around. We had begun looking out for one when the tank was 1/3 full, but we have now learnt not to let the tank get below half-full! Eventually, we turned off the freeway following a sign that indicated a petrol station close to hand. We had to drive 12kms before we came across it, by which time Clive and I were getting resigned to tossing a coin for who would walk for petrol and who would stay with the girls! Anyway, we just about made it to the hickey station, filled up and then returned to the highway. Road widening slowed us down again for the last 20 miles, so we were very glad to reach our destination, 5 1/2 hours after leaving home. Clive went for his meeting and the girls and I headed for the indoor pool – bliss!

The hotel is 4 years old and is more like a block of apartments, with each unit having a fully-fitted kitchen and laundry room. Ours also had 2 balconies (one overlooking the beach and the other at the back) and 2 spacious bedrooms. There was cream carpet throughout, which was a real treat!

The evenings are still chilly so we drove the 1km to the town centre for dinner, picking a Chinese restaurant which was very popular, but whose food was revolting, not fresh and clean-tasting like Chinese should be like – they’d never survive in Sydney! We did a little food shopping and returned to the apartment to play a game with the girls before watching a free DVD supplied by the hotel.

Saturday dawned bright and sunny, so after breakfast we hired bikes and went for a 2 hour ride to the north of the town, which included a free ferry ride to a less-developed area where cattle roamed the streets freely. We suffered a bumpy ride along an unmade road to the beach and then decided it hadn’t been worth it! We had to return the same way, but it was a good ride nonetheless.

After lunch, the girls went off to shop for dinner (they had offered to cook – great!) so Clive and I went for a walk south to explore the beaches.
We then detoured on the way back to visit a koala hospital at feeding time. In this case ‘feeding time’ meant syringes of antibiotics mixed with milk, which doesn’t sound appealing, but the poor sick koalas loved it, dribbling the milky mess down their chins and licking their lips. One was completely blind and will never leave the hospital, one had scoliosis (fairly common) and most had chlamydia (very common). All were very cute! We asked the girls if they wanted to pay a visit on the Sunday, but they weren’t interested – teenagers!

After another swim and sauna, we looked forward to dinner. Lots of ‘pinging’ noises from the kitchen should have warned us – dinner was microwaved pasta in sauce with tinned peas and sweetcorn. It filled a hole… actually, the chocolate mousse did that, and we weren’t too disappointed that it wasn’t homemade!

The weather wasn’t good on Sunday - showery and cool - so we were glad to be going home, even if that meant another long drive. For lunch, we stopped off at a road-side ‘eaterie’ called 'The Rock', with a roof resembling Ulhuru. Very tacky, but the ‘Subway’ sandwich was okay.

It was lovely to get away and to see a bit of the country – the drive followed the coast, with the Great Dividing Range inland. Closer to Sydney the countryside is thick bush, but a couple of hours away it becomes quite English-like, with fields of cattle and sheep. No agricultural farming though. Robyn is a very polite girl and her presence prevented Rebecca from having to put up with us on her own – probably something we’ll be doing again in the future!