Can’t get enough of the South Coast

FROM LIANA:

We packed up and prepared for a long drive to our next stop – a whole hour and ten minutes further down the road. Daniel is wanting to make it to Melbourne by the end of April and is worried that we aren’t making enough ground to get there by that time. I however have other ideas – there’s so much in this region to explore just sticking to the coast (we haven’t even headed inland yet so no doubt we’re missing a lot there too), and the whole point of this trip is to travel for the first time with no rush, and leaving no stone unturned. So, in my role as Navigator and Controller of the GPS he has little choice but to follow my plans, but unfortunately doesn’t quieten the opinions.

Our home for the week was Wairo Beach Park – another place I chose because once again it was slightly off the beaten path. It is less than a 10 minute drive from Ulladulla which had everything we possibly needed in terms of supplies, but still had quite an isolated and secluded feel about it. Kaia left here with a crush on the park owner Damian, constantly running around the park trying to find him. I think it all started when he gave her a free ice cream halfway through our stay. It’s quite a unique park with “Old Town” buildings which make you feel like you’re living on a movie set. Amazing water and splash park which the kids went to pretty much daily as well.

Unfortunately, when setting up we’ve started to have some major camper issues. The telescopic poles of the camper – the whole system which you wind up to make the whole thing expand into a “house” – seem to be buggered. The poles themselves are bent which means the whole alignment of the camper is wonky, and one of the poles didn’t seem to be working at all meaning we couldn’t actually get the camper up at all (P.S – I didn’t know they what a telescopic pole was before an SOS call to a local RV repair company). Obviously being an older model (1998) and second hand we didn’t expect it to be perfect but this seemed like one of those repair jobs which would cost more than what we paid for it given that it was the whole mechanics of the camper. I called a few local caravan repair places to see if they could take a look at it but they were all booked with jobs until the end of July – if anyone is looking for a career change take a look at the caravan repair industry as it seems to be a good business. I got on to an absolute legend at Eurobodalla Caravan Service who spent so much time trying to help us over the phone, and thankfully walked us through a bit of DIY repair job on the crank system which seems to have worked for now. If it wasn’t for him, we would have been sleeping in the car. A little authors note here; this little story I’ve outlined here took about 7 hours. 7 hours of the most screaming and swearing in recent memory, tools being thrown, threatening to set fire to our “home”, calling time on the whole trip. And 7 hours of absolutely nothing to occupy, entertain or contain the kids as everything was in the camper we couldn’t get up. Suffice to say it was a pretty silent night in the Acton camp that night.

Daniel andKaia had a little tradition when we were at home of skiving off and having aDaddy/Daughter date at the movies with all the trimmings – sundaes, popcorn andGold Class. So he “road tripped” this tradition and took her to Mogo Zoo and McDonald’s.After our less than positive experience at Shoalhaven Zoo, this zoo seemed tobe great with loads of animals, and met Kaia’s brief of having giraffes. I feellike the McDonald’s trumped the zoo though. Ryder and I stayed in our wonkycamper and enjoyed the peace and quiet.

Daddy Day Care then extended to a morning at Wairo Beach building nothing less than a full beach bar. Except there were no drinks. Hence I got a text message requesting to bring drinks down to the beach and to marvel at the morning’s work –  I have to say it was actually a very impressive feat of sand engineering. The park had its own track down to Wairo Beach – an endless stretch of sand and surf. I’ve recently found a new appreciation for beaches as the perfect place for kids (I know many of you already know this) as they can run around in complete safety. If anyone else outside of the park has access to this beach you certainly wouldn’t know it because all the time we went to the beach we had it all to ourselves.

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We also metanother travelling family who set off from Melbourne at the end of last yearwho were staying at the park. I’ve been amazed looking at social media just howmany families there are doing exactly the same thing as us, but it was great tomeet another traveling family and swap stories over some drinks. Leaving theirfancy caravan and coming back to our wonky camper felt a bit like coming backto a hostel after staying at a Hilton – but it’s what we’ve got!

It is however thanks to them that we would like to introduce the newest member of our travelling family – our portable washing machine! They had one as part of their set up, and mentioned that Aldi up in Ulladulla had them on clearance sale – so bang on opening time I was there to pick one up. You may have noticed a theme in my previous posts about my pining for a washing machine. I got bored very quickly of messing around with campsite laundries – at $4 a wash it adds up quickly and it’s a constant trek to the office for change. Now I can do washing all day every day. It’s still a bit of messing about as you have to fill and drain the water manually twice for each load, but it’s quickly became My Precious and dare I say it – probably the thing I love most on this trip (that comparison includes the family!)

We took an afternoon trip to Bawley Point. I’d read that there were resident stingrays in the little bay of the beach which you could feed. So off we went with visions of hand feeding wild stingrays – not that we brought anything to feed them unless stingrays like to eat sultanas or Smiths Crisps. We arrived at Bawley Beach –another spectacularly beautiful beach with turquoise blue water. There was a rock wall which indeed form a little bay which was protected from the waves –except no stingrays. The water was perfectly clear and shallow so it wouldn’t have been hard to spot them had they been there.

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We told Kaia the stingrays must have been having their dinner and spent the next hour enjoying climbing around the rocks to Cormorant Beach still searching the perfect blue water for stingrays. While we weren’t successful at finding stingrays that afternoon, we did find hundreds of wild kangaroos driving down to Merry Beach following the coast. Even though kangaroos are definitely not new or a novelty to us anymore – we all still get so excited whenever we see them in the wild.

The washing machine needed a bit of a break, so we went on an adventure to Murramarang National Park to take on the Pebbly Beach to Snake Bay track. It was the first proper hike we’ve done since the Milford Track and the 6km round trip seemed like peanuts in comparison. The views were spectacular along the hike, passing over bays which were bright green and clear. The highlight however would definitely be Pebbly Beach itself. A wild beach with kangaroos everywhere you turned – it pretty much summed up Australia for me in one picture – beach, surf and kangaroos.

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FROM DANIEL:

So its official. Camper is buggered. I would say the wheels have fallen off but they are about the only thing still functioning (touch wood). Got to our next site –which must have still been within the same postcode given our crawl of a pace –and one of the stabilizer feet was broken so we were unable to level out the camper. To make this even better we were unable to wind up the camper due to the internal poles no longer extending. The door was just about hanging on with duct tape. Luckily the wife managed to get some over the phone help from Craig –bloody legend. Patch jobs complete but I’m sure it won’t last long but at least we got it up for now.

Anyway, cool site. Loved the Old West theme of some of their rentable cabins. Particularly liked the decked walk down to the beach. Made it down to the beach a few times to wear the kids out and each time managed architectural sand wonders. Especially proud of my beach bar. Not blowing my own trumpet but this thing was on par the Opera House in terms of its wonder. Wasn’t until we finished that the lack of beer for my bar became apparent so sent out an SOS to the wife to remedy.

Took Kaia out on a Daddy/Daughter date. Has been a while since we had one. With Ryder being younger he tends to get more of the attention so it’s nice to give her some undivided quality time. Took her to Mogo Zoo and was hoping for the best given our last experience. Not a huge place but big enough to spend the day and plenty to see. We arrived just in time to feed the giraffes which are Kaia’s favourite animal – for $10 it was worth it for the photo opportunity. Stopped at Macca’s on the way back which I’m sure Kaia would say was the highlight.

Big news – I’ve given up smoking. Up to 7 days now and has been fun for the whole family as this has put me in a great mood (NOT).