Back to the Coast - Northern NSW

Mid March 2013

Sydney

We love Sydney. When you are sitting on its harbour ferries on a sunny day, it is hard to imagine a more spectacular city. And, when gawking at all those amazing pieces of real-estate, it is hard not to imagine how life would be if that money was ALL OURS.


Budding opera stars in the making....perhaps not! God knows Nikita's got the lungs for it....but the pitch and tune are not quite there.

Who's the LUNAtic??? Paul goes off for a great day of yacht racing outside The Heads of Sydney Harbour while Leanne takes three maniacs to Luna Park. It was crazy and exhausting but surprisingly fun as we whirled and twirled and fairy flossed our way through the madness. Paul, of course, had a terrible time on a slick, high-tech Sydney yacht!!



 
Dugong encounter, Darling Harbour.

Pittwater and the Hawkesbury River

Way too much money going on down here!! We have never seen as many boats as we did the day we toured the Pittwater area. Nikita has declared she will live here one day in a large white mansion (probably not from her millions made from opera singing). But, as long as she buys daddy a nice yacht, that will be OK.

Beautiful, misty dawn on the Hawkesbury.

Some people will go to extraordinary efforts to retrieve a fishing lure. Alas, we were denied a Funniest Home Videos moment!

An early-setttler (and First Fleet) cemetery along the Convict Trail near Wiseman's Ferry on the Hawkesbury. It was fascinating to see the remants of stone bridges and retaining walls along this early 1800s transport route that were hand chiselled by convicts.

Today, the convicts are gone and a more alternative community has sprung up in this beautifully-forested area. I'm sure the postie gets a chuckle each time he comes by.
 

 Seal Rocks

After the high country and the big smokes of Melbourne and Sydney, we were pretty excited to have the sand between our toes again at Seal Rocks north of Newcastle. 

Beach sunsets on the east coast are hard to come by - but this one was a beauty.

It was tough deciding whether to morning walk along the sandy bay or rocky headland at Diamond Head in the Crowdy Bay National Park.

 

Point Plomer - just north of Port Macquarie - was one of our favourite spots on the NSW coast. On one side was this dramatic rocky headland and on the other, a great campground overlooking a beautiful bay.....

which was the perfect spot for morning coffee and surf watching.

But then it's time for some hunting and gathering.

And some surfing lessons.

The girls get into it too.

The hardest part was getting them out of the water for dinner.

Soggy but happy.

Hey, who are you calling a toddler? Archie seems to grow an inch taller (and tougher) every day.

Rowdy Moments

The Good: Leanne's very well timed Sydney stay, which coincided with a work trip for my good buddy Sue Charlton and ended in a nice lunch and some sauvignon blancs at the Opera House - a world away from 3 kiddies and a portable canvas home.

The Bad: Nikita declaring she is going to live in one of those enormous, white mansions at Pittwater...it's such a long way from Cherryville - boo, hoo.

The Ugly: Archie's wanderlust. Despite our best efforts, Archie continues to take great joy in evading us at every opportunity. In Sydney, he decided to take himself off to the (very far away) skate park, at Seal Rocks it was the rocks, at Point Plomer it was the point. "Where's Archie??" has become the catch-cry of our trip - and could almost be the title of a book!!