Hiking Berowra track with Cousin Joe

Setting a record that's going to be hard to beat, Cousin Joe was able to visit us for a third time when the project that he's working on required another trip to Australia.  Although getting on another plane might have been the last thing that he'd want to do while here, he toughed it out to join us for the long weekend (God save the Queen and continue to give us a day off for her birthday!).

So many great times at the Bobbin Head marina

Since Saturday was supposed to be the best day of the weekend we picked him up at the airport and immediately headed up to Ku-ring-gai national to tackle part ofthe Berowra track which winds along the river.

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Being back in ku-rin-gai was rather bittersweet for me because the hike started right near where we used to have our boat share.  Of course the water was calm while we were hiking, and would have been absolutely perfect for a ski ride.  We shook our fists and reminisced on the good old days when we were partial boat owners, and then carried on hiking.

The trail itself was great, winding along the different coves along the river and giving frequent views out along the river.

The cousins

Because we've been having a lot of rain there were also some burbling streams for us to traverse, and a few muddy places to slide along.

don't slip!

proud to have made it to the rock without falling

guess that there's room for two

Chris proving that he can make it higher than me without slipping

After the hike we rushed home to make it down to the couches on the cliffs above Freshwater for the sunset.  After we scared a few teenagers away (must have run out of beer) we had the place to ourselves.

Although we had a long weekend for the Queen's birthday, Sunday and Monday were filled with torrential rain almost continuously.  We took a drive up to Palm Beach to show Joe some of the other beaches, and frequented a few local establishments for some beverages, but unfortunately the rest of the weekend ended gray and soaking wet.

Secret beach - I'd tell you where it is but I'd have to kill you

Autumn Fishing

I'd rather be..wait - I am boating!

Last weekend while the girls were doing the Coogee to Bondi walk, the boys were out enjoying the day in a more manly way, trying to catch dinner.

The weather was a balmy 19 C (66F) and heading up in middle harbour the wind was calm so the water was perfect for bombing around in the ducky.

While enjoying a beer and hanging a fishing rod out, the sun put on a show as it dipped below the horizon.

Couldn't ask for a nicer autumn afternoon on the water (except maybe catching a massive kingie). 

Lucky Visitor #7: Lauren

Our next visitor to paradise was Chris's work colleague, and our amazing former dodgeball team member, Lauren.  Although it took an additional friend moving down under to get her on the plane, we were excited to have her with us for a few days at the beginning of her trip.



First sunset on the rocks, Manly in the background

Chris took a few days off so he picked her up from the airport and spent the next 18 hours or so keeping her moving so that she didn't fall asleep.  They made it all the way to Palm Beach and back, plus walked to Shelly and explored some of Manly.  By the time I met up with them in the evening at Murray's she was looking a bit dazed but was a trooper and managed a few beers before crashing for the evening.

On the Freshwater Cliffs, sunset Lazy-boy style

 After some well deserved sleep, the next morning we rented a boat to show her the harbor in style.  The weather was perfect for a day in the boat, definitely a million times better than a day at work!

Living the good life

On Saturday the weather continued to cooperate so I drove the girls back to Coogie and joined them on the Coogie to Bondi walk. 

Lauren and Katie at the start of the walk

Look at how green that water is

This is a coastal walk that winds along the different beaches on the Eastern Suburbs and is a great way to see the area.

What a place to be buried!

Bronte beach, smaller than I expected

 

Lauren with the graveyard in the background



This was my first trip to the "dark side" (big rivalry between the Eastern Suburbs and Northern Beaches) and while the walk was great, I'm definitely happy to be a Northern Beaches girl.

On Sunday we took Lauren to her first rugby game, which was also our first time supporting the local Manly Sea Eagles.  While we'd watched them win from the pub many times in the past, including the 2011 grand final, watching them win in person was quite exciting. 

The crowd was full of supporters and the stadium was pretty small with grassy hills on two sides for the supporters to sit on which made it feel like we were very close to the action.  It's always the best to be on the winning side and everyone toasted to victory!

Monday Chris continued with some time off and he and Lauren took a bus trip up to the Hunter Valley for some time in the sunshine and some wine tasting.  Now she's off to continue the fun with Katie to see some more of the country.

Surfer's Moon

Last Sunday we were fortunate enough to have clear skies for the supermoon.  While the scientists prefer the term "perigee-syzygy of the Earth-Moon-Sun system", I think that we'll stick to supermoon as the much cooler way to refer to it. 

Super Moon!

Before the moon came up, Chris and I took some beers down to rocks in Queenscliff to watch the surfers putting on a show for us.  For several days we'd been having massive waves with the right wind conditions and all of the good surfers in town were definitely taking advantage.  

check out the hoard of people, how are there that may good surfers around??



pretty big waves today

Pondering the best spot to jump

picture doesn't show quite how fast he's zooming along

Queenscliff Bombie, only breaks when the waves are huge

bird has the best vantage point

body boarder pretending he's good enough to be a surfer

Freshwater beach from the cliffs

 After the sun started down we headed over to the other side of the headlands to watch the moon rise over the ocean.

super moon, in pink



super moon in full color

What a great way to wrap up a weekend.

Anzac Day 2012

ANZAC Day is a national day of rememberance in Australia and New Zealand, originally to honor the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who fought at Gallipoli during World War I.  This is also now intended to be a day of rememberance, similar to our veterans day, and most importantly is a day off of work and school.

While the day starts with somber dawn services at the RSLs (similar to our veterans clubs, but more of a community center) and surf clubs, like most Australian holidays this soon becomes a race to see how drunk you can get. 

At our local RSL, the Habord Diggers, where we are members of the mounties, they host the largest game of Two-up in the Southern Hemisphere.  The Aussies tell us that this is what the soldiers played in the trenches because it's essentially just betting on flipping a coin, however the wikipedia entry seems to disagree a bit.  Regardless, this is the one day a year where it's legal to play two-up, so everyone takes full advantage.

The crowd at Diggerts

After an afternoon bbq at our place with some practice rounds of two-up we moved the party over to the diggers.  This was around 4 pm, and at this point people had been drinking steadily since noon, if not earlier so the crowd was amazingly enthusiastic about the heads or tails outcome. 

The spinner in action

In this game, anyone in the crowd who wants to bet on heads holds up some denomination of money and shouts out "20 heads" or "10 on heads" until some random stranger in the crowd decides to take tails.  The person betting heads holds the money, and then the "spinner" flips the coins.  If the spinner gets three heads in a row they get some additional prize, so generally everytime that it landed heads everyone cheered, and tails was worth a boo. 

Amazingly, after hours and hours of drinking, this massive crowd was completely friendly, even with large amounts of money changing hands and no fights broke out.  After the sun went down we kicked our way through the piles of empty beer cans and champagne bottles and toasted one more in honor of those who have served.

Of COURSE we'll take the upgrade to the 35ft Yacht

This is what you think of when you say "I'd rather be boating"

Last weekend we were excited to spend the day out in a boat that one of our friends found through one of those deal sites. This was originally supposed to be a 22 ft boat, however we showed up a bit early and Chris went in to talk to the woman behind to counter to figure out the details. He walked out a few minutes later with the biggest grin on his face after he'd convinced the lady to upgrade us to the 35ft yacht for the same price because of all of "our" boating experience. 



Chris at the wheel

After we were given a tour of the 2 bathrooms, 3 bedroom, multi level boat, they asked if anyone had any boating experience to which I figured saying that I had "a lot" to would mean they let us take the boat.  Everyone else was conspicuosly quiet at this point, but they believe us and he gave us a push off the dock and we headed out into beautiful Pittwater.

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Lion Head 

This is a bay which has the ocean on the right hand side and also connects to our old boating area of the Hawesbury river.  

John taking a turn at piloting

We putted along at the measly 10 knots that the boat was goverend to out of the bay and into the river and then pulled up into Refuge Bay for some relaxation and to try our fishing rods.



Linton getting ready for the mooring catch, Hannah on hand with directions

John piloting us in to a mooring, Amy and Simone averting their eyes so he doesn't get nervous

 Unfortunately the size of the boat was a bit of a hinderance to the fishing, however the newcomers to the sport were quite thrilled with their first catches. 


Hannah's first fish



You touch it!



Hold it closer to the camera so that it looks bigger...

After feeding the tiny fish around we made our way back to the dock, which was the part of the day that I'd been dreading all day.  Why oh why don't they just put this thing at a mooring?!  Apparently I was the only nervous one, and the docking mission actually went off perfectly against all of my expectations.


Back at the dock, safe and sound

Although no monster fish were caught, any day boating is a great day, and when you can do it in a 35 ft yacht it's even sweeter.