One of the biggest highlights of our year abroad has been our weekend getaways. While day-to-day life has especially been a challenge for Kevin, it has been so good for our whole family to have these little escapes to look forward to on a regular basis. These excursions have also given us the opportunity to make epic memories together, and to see more of this beautiful country. Our commitment to camp (and a climate and a plethora of campgrounds that allow us to) on these weekends has made exploring much more affordable. Our intention on our return home is to make more room for weekends like this (minus white sand beaches and tents in winter, of course - sob), and we hope those intentions lead to action, even as we return to regular life and commitments. It is a mystery how life-balance can be so elusive. I have certainly missed aspects of having regular life commitments (a strong sense of community, belonging, and friendship developed over time is a main one), but I know I will dearly miss having zero expectations from outside of myself (Lord knows the internal ones haven't eased much - a work forever in slow, painful progress).
We planned a weekend away just after our Spring holiday to help ease the post-vacation blues. It worked! We were planning a trip to the outback town of Bourke, however, we chose to head to the ocean last minute due to flies, heat, and enough recent dust storms in Dubbo to desire a break from outback-like conditions. It was a dreamy Spring-weather weekend for the coast, so we were pleased with the change in the end. Here are some photos of our weekend in Fingal Bay, near the town of Nelson Bay.
Flies, flies, everywhere flies - better on the back than in your eyes, ears, nose and mouth!
Whale-watching - so cool.
We stopped at the amazing Murray's Brewery and winery for some delicious squid and chips and beer on the way home. So good.
This was the last time we would pass this really neat tree growing in between a split rock, so Kevin actually stopped for me to document it. That's love, folks.
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We finally made our way out to Ganguddy-Dunn's Swamp, in Wollemi National Park, after being told a number of times that we should visit this campsite because we enjoy camping and hiking. We were supposed to go with Kevin's coworkers a while back, but had to cancel on them due to a very sore back. I'm so happy that we were able to go. It was so nice to be around fresh water (I was often reminded of the beautiful Whiteshell in Manitoba/Ontario) during this very dry time, and the kids loved climbing all over the rocks. Our first night was rough, with a family reunion parking their tents right beside ours and having fun (while this uptight Canadian lay smoldering) until 3 am. But, on the bright side, I gave my kids a healthy lesson on friendly confrontation vs. passive-aggressiveness the next morning, and we all enjoyed complete silence and solid sleeps starting at 10 pm that night. (I choose to take credit for our peaceful night, with only the croaking frogs lulling us to sleep, rather than the strong possibility of complete exhaustion of our next door neighbours from the partying they did the night before.) It was a windy and chilly 18 degree weekend, but we managed to have at least one refreshing swim in the "swamp" and enjoyed hiking the local trails.
We did not get to see an elusive platypus, even at Platypus Point.
The dam.
Bug writing on eucalypts.
Our little mountain goats.
Forbidden love.
We saw our very first scorpion! It climbed out of the firepit while we were having dinner. It was super small, and we have heard that small scorpions pack a bigger punch, but I think the truth is that smaller scorpions punch more often.
And we finally saw black cockatoos! So cool.
Kevin has been wanting to take a photo of a dead, white eucalypt for months on our many road trips. But this tree had to meet certain requirements for him to actually pull over and take a photo. It had to be big, white, have many branches, and be in the middle of nowhere. I convinced him to pull over for this tree. I think it meets the requirements quite nicely!
