A belated happy new year, for the first time in my life I’ve actually felt a detox was necessary and have been doing a yoga course at 6am for the last week to try and cleanse myself a bit. Slightly shattered, and probably slightly mad for partaking but my post-Raleigh muscles are drooping and the wine and chocolate over Christmas did me no favours. That said we had a great break over Christmas with Simon’s family.
(Me, Charl my mum & bro in the classic opera house shot)
My Family & I oustide the "summer bay surflifesaving club" palm beach
Holiday house in Anna Bay, Port Stephens
View from our terrace - not your standard xmas viewing!
Camel rides on stockton beach - a few minutes walk from the house
A couple of the amazing sunsets we saw at Anna Bay
Vitsing Port Stephens (a couple of hours north of Sydney) and the Blue Mountains – really seriously stunning – particularly away from the crowds of SE Asian tour groups. We used the opportunity to take the motor out into the 35k of sand dunes called stockton beach and hone our off road driving skills a bit. Me by embedding it in a sand dune on Stockton Dunes – embarrassingly for Simon in the one place along the beach that people actually stop, park and picnic. Sorry. Unfortunately it was only after a kind guy had pulled us out – we did have our own snatch strap! (that is a technical term by the way) – that we realised what a great photo opportunity it would have been. Nevermind. After suffering much berating from the obviously better skilled driver in our relationship I spent the following day hanging around on the beach while Simon took Pip on a drive down the beach – I mentioned to Si that maybe he needed to drop his tyre pressures a bit more if he was going off on the dunes and then off they went. And waited I did. A few hours later they returned after Simon had got the truck stuck up a massive sand dune away from everybody, for some reason doing a 3 point turn. I was quietly pleased when he mentioned that maybe he should have dropped the tyre pressures a bit more.
Charl posing (before she got it stuck)
taking a break by the wreck of the Sygna
Driving up big sand dunes = lots & lots of fun
Unless you get stuck and can't get out - like this unlucky fella!
And when you get bored of driving there's always dune boarding on your bodyboard!
Another highlight of the port stephens trip was a boat trip to Broughton Island. We had a beatiful sunny day, dolphins in the bow waves of the boat, snorkelled with huge manta rays. It was all going wonderfully until the skipper wrapped his mooring rope around his prop on the way out and we had to be bailed out by a local fisherman with a scuba tank and a hacksaw
The dolphins in the bowwave
Dad & Pip contemplating the ocean on Broughton Island
The surf beach side of port Stephens
The Interior Bay of Port Stephens
In the Blue Mountains we did some great walks and came back for NYE in Sydney. We didn’t brave the city centre but had a great meal with family and friends and had the surreal experience of seeing the tops of the city fireworks in the distance across the headland and the ‘live on tv’ version in the restaurant delayed by about 2 seconds.
View from our cottage balcony - it's true honest
feeding the rosella's on our terrace
typical blue mountains viewpoint
Then back to work (4 weeks and counting)
We’ve had our own flat in the centre of Manly for January which we’ve enjoyed despite the cockroach infestation and have had a pretty quiet month, the highlight being our trip to Canberra in the rain. Canberra is the most incredibly, exciting city you’ll ever visit and I really recommend a trip. Okay, that’s not quite the truth. We visited some guys form the expedition who are living there and it was great to see them, and I really wanted to prove everybody wrong and decide that Canberra was indeed an interesting place and not-deserving of its reputation of being slightly dull. Well, I’m afraid it was. I can see what attracts some people there but not for me I’m afraid. We did see a brilliant exhibition of Aboriginal Art though and the National Museum was really worth a wander around.
We’ve had our own flat in the centre of Manly for January which we’ve enjoyed despite the cockroach infestation and have had a pretty quiet month, the highlight being our trip to Canberra in the rain. Canberra is the most incredibly, exciting city you’ll ever visit and I really recommend a trip. Okay, that’s not quite the truth. We visited some guys form the expedition who are living there and it was great to see them, and I really wanted to prove everybody wrong and decide that Canberra was indeed an interesting place and not-deserving of its reputation of being slightly dull. Well, I’m afraid it was. I can see what attracts some people there but not for me I’m afraid. We did see a brilliant exhibition of Aboriginal Art though and the National Museum was really worth a wander around.
Our mates Derek & Hazel & a grey, rainy Canberra
This weekend is more camping (we’re practicing for the trip) and another move of flat, wishing everyone well, family and friends stay in our hearts and minds all the time
Si: 2007 was a ridiculous year which included camping in hammocks in the jungle, driving fully kitted Landy's through the middle of some of the worlds oldest rainforest, learning how to use machete's, building bridges and water feeds, bathing elephants, diving with sharks, rockclimbing, surfing, snowboarding, jumping out of planes, driving in Sandunes and growing a handlebar mustache.
In terms of an interesting blog we'll do our utmost to keep up to standard - we're about to head off on a 5 month camping adventure driving through some of Australia's most remote country, where people have corks dangling from their hats and the blokes look like members of ZZ Top who have been on a lifetime diet of huge red meat steaks, where you can't go near the rivers cos of the crocks & the seas cos of the jellies and sharks. All in all should have some interesting photo's to post.
A belated happy new year to all back home (if anyone's still reading this by now)
