30th November - Part II We called in on Ruben, Cheri & Jason's house as soon as we arrived - and they made us feel very welcome. They have a lovely informal home with Scampi the dog and chooks in the yard (mostly to be seen worn on Emmy's head) and the boys revelled in having some grown up boys to play with. Jason has some Zebra Finches in a tea chest cage which have had 4 chicks and is now making a large aviary in the yard for them all.

We stayed for hot dogs and then headed off to check in at our camp site. Our cabin is great (cabins seem to be the way to go) and we are about 100yds from the river beach again. The river runs parallell to the sea this point and immediately across the river is the back of the sea beach.

The campsite playground

The path behind our cabin leads to the beach

Our river beach

The view from our balcony

1st December. Hard to believe its December as we put on the suncream!

Breakfast in the cabin.

Walked into Sawtell village in the morning which is about 1/2 a mile and wandered around the shops. Isaace and Al met some russian wolfhounds which looked like a cross between an Irish wolfhound and a greyhound and were friendly with very long thin faces.

Al had a very artistic coffee and Isaac loved his first spider drink.

We popped in for lunch at R,C & J's house which was a great Greek salad and it was to good to catch up with what they are all doing.

Evan explained about his Kung Fu and Karate in which he has a blue belt; he knows about all the world martial arts and is studying Japanese as well. Cheri showed us how to draw out silk thread from a silk worm's cocoon - its one of those houses where there is always something interesting going on! Cheri home shools Evan and Emmy and a large part of this seems to be experimenting at home.

In the afternoon Isaac and Rachel walked across the river at low tide to the beach on the other side which Isaac loved.

The river follows the same pattern as all the others we seen in the last few weeks - quite wide but only knee deep for most of the width with a chest deep channel only a few yards wide. Issac has been given Emmy's old life vest which is great for helping to learn the swim. In the evening Ruben & Emmy came round, took the boys to playground, told them a story about "Nipper the Crab" and helped put them to bed and Al went to do the blog which took a very long time!

2nd December. Al's birthday! Unfortunately it started rather early when Charlie arrived for a very wriggley snuggle and to tell us that he wanted to play with Emmy.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Ruben took Isaac and Al off in his canoes to go fishing on Boambee Creek which was a very easy float upstream with the incoming tide.

On route Isaac trailed a hand line behind the canoe said that he wished the Baker boys had a boat! Ruben and Al discussed what a great place Oz is for bringing up kids - the weather just means so much more outdoors lifestyle than in UK. After a while we found a likely spot where the deep channel came near the bank under a big tree and got ashore. Ruben had brought some mullett fillets as bait and there were lots of small fish taking the bait but nothing big enough to take the hook. There was a big rope swing into the river which Ruben enjoyed (Al's stomach not up to hanging from things yet) and Isaac was very impressed by this. After about an hours fishing we had caught 1 deck chair, 2 trees and managed to cast the fishing bag and Als glasses into the river - slightly frustrating as there is a huge quantity of fish in these rivers - Al might need to have a fishing lesson! Isaac & Al had a really good morning with Ruben and Isaac is really getting into the water activities.

The paddle home was a lot more strenous into the tide and we were a little late for leaving for our lunch at the hippy community. After collecting the girls we drove for 15mins southwest and then left the paved road and went another 1 or 2 miles into the bush on a gravel road and then arrived at the community. This is a large area of land where people can build homes and live with some communial facilities, including a large meeting building where we had lunch.

It was a great cheap meal (vegetable chilli with guacamole, salad and bread) and Isaac ran off and played barefoot on the grass which had us worrying about snakes and spiders - but he survived. The community seemed a very welcoming and relaxed place but the composting toilets would take some getting used to. It was significantly hotter slightly inland too with very little breeze which has made us question our plans for next week. On the way home Isaac said that lunch was fun but he preferred the boats.

Rach went for a swim in the pool with Ruben & Emmy while Al looked after a supposedly sleeping Charlie. We had a birthday cake:

Charlie didnt understand the instruction to pretend to eat the cake, note the bitten off corner!

In the evening we walked down the 100yards to the river and issac and charlie stripped off and splashed about in the river. It is really lovely to see them enjoying the water. When Isaac threw some sand on Charlie's face he ran into the river and stuck his head under water! It was a beautiful evening on the small river beach and a great place to be for your birthday. Isaac took Al across the river to the beach on the other side and they had a long walk along the perfect and empty beach. The sand has a crunchy crust like walking on snow.

3rd December. After getting up early again (what is it about Australians and a lack of curtains???) we decided to go to the Pet Porpoise Pool which was a small sea life centre based on a series of demonstrations/shows rather than just wandering around. Straight in through the gate and Al had to kiss a 31 stone sealion which was very whiskery experience (for them both!).

Feeding the dolphins

The combined dolphin, sealion and seal show was fun as it was quite small so we were close to the action. The dolphins were fairly unruly and only followed half the instructions - this was blamed on the warm weather effecting their testorone levels which was a better excuse than Australian dolphins not being quite as intelligent as those in the rest of the world.

Isaac was selected from the crowd to help with the seal show and had to come to the front and throw frisbees for "Mindy" to catch. He did 3 really good throws each of which was progressinevly harder but the seal caught them all and got great cheers from the crowd.

Isaac was less pleased when the dolphin swam past afterwards and soaked him. 3 other children were chosen to go and sing Happy Birthday to Al while the dolphins danced to the "music" - the children carried on straight into a full rendition of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" which confused the dolphins and amused the crowd.

Feeding the fairy penguins was good fun although Charlie persisted in trying to stroke them to the annoyance of the keepers.

The turtles which were about to be released back into the wild seem to have little chance of survival as they couldn't find a dead fish thrown to within 6 inches of them. We then had a stressful hour while Al had to battle with Westpac to get money out and the kids went wild in Subway.

Another sunny late afternoon at our river beach - 4 to 6pm seems to be the best weather for being outside. Isaac keeps singing "What shall we do with a drunken sailor" etc etc - this has later been traced back to Emmy...

A BBQ for supper:

Cheers!

and then round to R,C & J's house for evening chat and drinks. Lots of discussions about families (!) and where we should go for the next week before Sydney. Boys didnt get to bed until 10pm.

4th December Slightly chilly morning (22C) so we walked into the village to get a few things. A, I & C sat on a bench and literally every passerby stopped to talk to the boys - each was informed that Isaac is nearly four and wants a talking dinosaur for his birthday and that Charlie had chocolate cake at his party. We bought a few books at a charity shop and Charlie then smashed their glass bells decoration. Despite the weather Isaac and Rach were keen to go to the beach anyway. Not much swimming going on as the tide was in and therefore the water was a bit deeper and colder but we sank a bucket into the sand and found some "pets" which were unfortunate hermit crabs. Rach then made some great sand car and motorbike sculptures for the boys to sit on. Then back to the cabin for hot showers.



















After the ironically named sleep time we went over to R,C & J's house where the kids had a great time playing on Jason's ute:

Charlie has Scampi the dog held hostage under the truck canopy!

R&A left the kids and went out for dinner to the local indian restaurant. The food was fairly average but it was great to get some time on our own.

A fig tree in Sawtell High Street at night.

Back at the house the kids were still awake and were having a fun time playing with Emmy and Ruben and watch the Swallows and Amazons film. R is fantastic with the kids and is always entertaining them and they seem very happy to have been left.

5th Another slightly iffy weather day and we decided to go for a swim in a pool. The pool attached to the camp site is not much good in that it is always booked out for lessons so we asked Cheri & reception for recommendations - both pointed us to the Coffs Harbour Caravan park which we managed to blag our way into. It was fairly cold water and raining so A & R weren't that enthusiatic but the boys loved it. Charlie shot down the slide when we werent looking but bobbed to the surface shortly afterwards and hung on to the bottom of the slide until rescued. Anytime Charlie gets a few inches of altitude we get "I'm the king of the castle!"

Our little pearls!

We met Ruben for lunch at the Education Campus where he works in the IT unit. This is a combined campus for Coffs Harbour Uni, a technical college and a secondary school which seems like a very practical idea. We had lunch in the canteen which was full of studenty reminders, including vomit in the water fountain, and then walked up a hill at the back of campus.
There were great views of the hills to the west of Coffs and Ruben told us the story of how he ended up in Sawtell on the way back to the car.

Ruben disappearing with the boys.

Back at the cabin the sun came out so R & I went for a swim in the river while C slept (hurray!). In the evening we met R, C & E at Boambee Creek Reserve for a BBQ and the kids (including Ruben!) had great fun in the boats and splashing about. Charlie was seen practising looking though his legs while standing in the river which involved getting a wet head - somehow reminiscent of Eeyore. Jason & Evan turned up in time for food which was a nice surprise so we had the whole gang together for our last night in Sawtell. Steak & prawns - a good Aussie BBQ.