No Charlie its not a DOG its a Kangeroo!: Leaving Sawtell for South West Rocks

Ruben came to look after the boys while we packed up and checked out which made the process at lot less stressful. However come 10am Ruben had gone awol with the boys and we had an interesting 30 mins looking for them - we were justing discussing that Ruben had said he wanted more children ......... when we found them.

Our Sawtell cabin

Having loaded up we headed over to R,C&J's house one more time. The weather was now incredibly hot and humid so we ditched the plans to go for walk in the hills and decided to leave the boys helping Jason with the aviary and head out to lunch.

Ruben took us into town via the beach route and it was great to cool our feet and we saw a group (pod?) of 4 dolphins in the sea.

We had lunch and our first ever Affogato (expresso with ice cream in it). Rachel needed some new sunnies so we popper over the road to Sawtell's finest pound shop and she joined the rich and famous with some eighties style oversize glasses.

Back at the house we said our goodbyes - it had been a fantastic week getting to know Ruben and family and it is hard to believe that we had only been there for 6 days. Wereally hope to see them all again, either here or in the UK.

The journey to South West Rocks was uneventful and we arrived in time for a dip in the pool before (attempting) to put the kids to bed. The cabin had bunks again but with better safety bars so we let Isaac sleep in the top but Charlie was not allowed up there. However Charlie would not stay put and everytime we closed the door we could hear his feet on the ladder. When we had put him back for the fiftieth time Rachel managed to stay in the room unnoticed to see what was happening and Isaac was caught redhanded persuading Charlie not to worry about Mummy and Daddy and climb up!

7th December After the previous night's problems we were extremely worried when we couldnt see Charlie in his bed.......until we spotted him.

Where's Wally?

Our campsite folder told us that the Anglican Church service was at 9:00am so we headed just in time to see them all leaving church - it actually started at 8. The next possibility on the list was the Baptist church but we also found them leaving church which might have been lucky as "John" told us that there were only 5 of them and he was the youngest - he was at least 75. All that was left on our list was the New Life Christian Centre which Al was slightly suspicous of but John assurred him they were not nutters.

It was actually a very welcoming evangelical church in an industrial unit behind a tyre depot. We had a good sermon from a visitor lay preacher on living to have Romans 12:12 ("Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer") as your epitaph. He started with some supposedly real headstone inscriptions including:

The children of Israel wanted bread,

And the Lord sent them manna,

Old clerk Wallace wanted a wife,

And the Devil sent him Anna.

There were only about 20 in the congregation so we managed to chat to most people after the service and it was quite interesting getting a glimpse into the locals lives in small town Australia. Isaac and Charlie conned several people into reading stories and they were very happy until Isaac managed to skin both knees quite impressively - time to leave.

There was a country club nearby so we headed over for lunch. It was a fascinating place with about 200 Alf Stewarts drinking heavily while keeping an eye on their meat raffle tickets. We later found a large side room filled with pokies (slot machines) where all the Ailsa Stewarts were desperately trying to line up their pineapples. We had a standard meal out i.e. the boys redecorated the dining room with cheese and ham croissant and Rachel decided she preferred what Al had ordered.

Back at camp we had a swim in the pool and the spa which were made out of an effective looking fake rock3 and discovered that the park was full of wild(ish) kangeroos. Isaac pushed his luck but got away with it.

After supper we went for a walked towards town and on the way passed a interesting triangular house that we stopped to photograph but there was a terrible stench.

Al thought this might be from Harlequin beatles in a nearby lime tree until Rachel pointed out the enourmous dead kangeroo. The boys were, of course, fascinated and now whenever they won't put their seltbelts on are threatened with "Do you want to end up like the kangeroo?".