Birthday Camping at Cave Beach

Welcome to Cave Beach

To celebrate Amy's and My birthdays, we ventured down to Jervis Bay where we explored Cave Beach Campground and the surrounding beautiful, deserted beaches.

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Amy and I set out early Friday with the rest of our party arriving Friday evening with a fire going and a Tyrannosaurs birthday cake waiting to be devoured.  The cake had to be defended from the kangaroos and possums roaming the campground but once it was made extinct we laid back and enjoyed the fire.  Smores soon followed.

Dino cake RAWRRRRRR!!!

Panoramic view of Cave Beach, click to expand

The Cave of Cave Beach

Saturday we woke up to sunshine and juevos rancheros a la Amy.  We took the short walk to Cave beach to enjoy the sunshine and waves.  The sun played hide and seek with us till early afternoon when it turned on full sunburn-inducing overdrive.

A well deserved break after bodysurfing

Cave Beach again

James relaxing as hard as he can

The waves were halfway decent and our mate John spent the whole day in the water on his surfboard, taking breaks here and there to have a beer or sandwich with us on the beach.  At times, he was literally the only person surfing on the beach.  A far cry from the relatively busy breaks of Manly.  Amy also tried out her new bodyboard and she was smiles from ear to ear.

Ahhhh....summer

Amy in a wave

That evening we settled in for a barbecue by way of Jeroen and Ramonda as well as having Simone join us with food reinforcements.  Kangaroos were everywhere in the afternoon and some came right up to check us out.

A curious kangaroo

Chris performing a mind-meld

MMMM.....bbq

On Sunday, Chris and Delia took a walk with their 3 month old (baby's 1st camping trip) and discovered a brand new beach, totally deserted.  After some chocolate-chip banana pancakes, we ventured out to it to find it sparsely populated with people but densely packed with beautiful waves.  We proceeded to play in the water till exhaustion and sunburn set in and then packed up for the trip home.

Amy bushwacking to a new beach

Worth the walk

Momma Roo with a Joey in the pouch

All by ourselves

I call this side of the beach!

Ryan's Swamp, near the campground

 We are greatly looking forward to going back in a couple weeks as part of the whirlwind tour when Oakley and Amy come out to visit!

Summer Camping 2: Port Stephens

One Mile Beach. Beautiful.

Towards the end of summer, we decided to have another go at fishing up in the Port Stephens/Seal Rocks area after our last failed attempt. We ventured up on a Friday evening with James and Debs not far behind. The race was on.

We camped at the amazing One Mile Beach Holiday park:

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Like our last camp ground at Treachery, this had its own beach. Unlike the last camp ground, you could go into the water without worrying about being dragged out to sea.

We made the most of this, bodysurfing and swimming for hours both days. The waves were perfect, medium sized but powerful and cleanly breaking. I actually rode across the face of a wave for a short period in a barrel for the first time, this was sublime.

On saturday, after a breakfast of chocolate-bannana pancakes and bodysurfing, we ventured out on a fishing charter via Pacific Blue Charters out of Port Stevens.

Amy, fishing for all womankind

This was a large boat with a knowledgable crew of typical chauvanistic Aussie blokes running the operation. The general attitude was that we were lucky to have the opportunity for them to share their boat with us.

Once we got out to the fishing site, we got geared up. Apparently they couldn't tell Debs and Amy apart either, as they continually called both of them, "doll". Goodonya, mate.

Amy defied them by catching more fish than the other 8 people on the boat combined for a total of 6 teraglin, 1 rock cod, and 1 flathead. James, Debs, and I caught 3 other fish over the course of the day.

The teraglin was something new to us, we had never seen these fish before. They fought most similarly to jewfish, which we catch regularly in Sydney.

At one point, the crew shouted out to the rest of the boat, "whose girlfriend is that in the back corner, I bet you're not bringing her fishing again". The doll they were talking abiut was Amy.

Response, "Are you kidding, if she keeps catching fish, I am going to bring her every time!"

What victory looks like

Anyways, with more fish than we could possibly eat, we ended up giving most of it away to the hapless charter-ees that were significantly less successful than our troupe.

We ended up cooling some with dill and lemon and the rest in a curry sauce. Mmmmmmm good.

Overall, it was a great trip. The campsite was nice and had a great beach and the fishing was leagues more successful than our previous abortive attempt. We left happy and stopped for ice cream on the way home, the perfect conclusion to any trip.

Don't trust anyone over 30

The boys, hard at work

Amy and I recently started the great downward decline towards senility and retirement this month when we both turned 30 years old.

Picnic on the beach

It's all pretty much over.

We celebrated the occasion by hosting a barbecue on the beautiful Shelly Beach.


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We had a beautiful day for it and there was even a shark that made an appearance off shore. For some reason, one of the other beach-goers called the cops.

The cops showed but no arrests were made.

Preparing for the kill

We topped of the day with cake and a pinata. Most of our non-US friends knew what a pinata was from TV and movies but had never had one at a party. What terrible childhoods they must have had.



As a great sage once said:

Don't trust anyone over 30.

-H.S.

Sunset over Manly

Drive fast and leave a trail of wreckage in your wake

Zoom Zoom!!!!! This past weekend we went go karting to celebrate our mate Debs’ birthday. Fun was had by all and no one ended up crying. Win/Win.

Chris explaining the finer points of driving victoriously to Amy

This was an excellent birthday activity and really highlights the better parts of being a grown-up. If you aren’t going to do all the fun stuff you weren’t able/allowed to as a kid, what is the point of growing up? Ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Why not?

We topped the day off with a barbeque at Kat and Webs’ and feasting on a delicious, psychedelic cake that Amy and James made for Debs.

Mmmmm....breakfast...

Anyone for bowls?

Kat bowling, everyone else preparing in the back

This past weekend Amy and I were transported into proper Australia/English society by being taken by our friends to a Lawn Bowls Club in North Manly. Lawn bowling is generally the province of retirees and aristocrats but they got us in the door with the offer of jugs of beer and trash talking.

Lawn Bowling is played on an immaculately manicured rectangular court and is most similar to bocce ball whit the goal being to roll your balls closest to a smaller, off-color ball. The biggest difference between lawn bowling and bocce is that the balls you throw with are ellipsoid, rather than round and weighted to one side to facilitate curved throws.

Lawn bowling Gatorade

Amy and I quickly took on the role of kingmaker, being better at knocking other teams' balls out rather than actually being able to land ours the closest.

Debs: The Terminator of Lawn Bowls

Add in jugs of beer to the intense competitive nature of our group and it led to some memorable showdowns.

We followed up the day with a bbq at Kat and Web's place that led to over eating and the next even for the day, the introduction America's next great cultural export, of beer pong to the southern hemisphere.

Finally, after hours of failing at goddamn lawn bowls, we were back in our home territory.

Our non-yankee friends took quickly to the game and the smack talk and psyche outs flowed like water.

James on the psyche-out defense, Amy: Cool as ice

Let the game now spread like wildfire across the continent.

Sunday we ventured out to the RSL (Returned and Services League (similar to the Veteran's Association in the US) at Harbord Diggers to watch the UFC fight. In Australia, every community of decent size has one of these clubs and they host everything from resturants, bars, and gyms to scout troops to large events such as comedy acts and musicians. It is also common for them to house gambling operations like slot machines or sports bookies.


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It was a great place to watch the fights, there were lots of large projection screens and even stadium seating in one area. The cheap beers ($3.90 each) plus the prerequisite violence entailed in watching the fights made it a home away from home (away from home).

Sunset over Freshwater, never gets old