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Published: July 10th 2011
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Well, we are back on the road again, and I have to say, our first sojourn in Cazza after a seven week hiatus proved to be quite eventful. We decided to head inland for one last adventure in the mountains (and I think Paul was secretly hoping to get in one more rock climbing expedition) and, being out of routine, we did not think to study our faithful willyweather.com! We were expecting cold weather, but what we didn’t expect was the wind. We arrived just in time to experience the coldest, windiest couple of days the Blue Mountains had experienced in more than a decade! Winds of up to 140km/h were recorded, and our caravan shuddered and shook. The first two nights were reasonably uneventful, as we were warmly ensconced in our caravan and after all, it wasn’t like we were in hurricane territory. It was chilly, and after having ventured out in the morning to catch up with Paul’s friend Geoff and his children for a walk, we rushed back to Cazza and huddled inside for an afternoon of card games, lego and DVD watching.
It was only on the second day when we decided to visit the surrounds
that we discovered how destructive the winds had been, and how vulnerable we actually were in Cazza. Thousands of trees had been uprooted (one smashing down on a CityLink train), roofs had been blown off, trees were blocking many major roads - we felt like we were driving through a post-apocalypse site. It was very eerie. We checked out another caravan park and saw trees uprooted everywhere, and were very grateful we weren’t there - only to return to our caravan park, and notice that we were parked very close to a tree, and we then noticed what the big bang had been the night before: an industrial-size metal rubbish bin had been upended and lay on its side, close to our caravan. It was too late to pack up and make a fast getaway, so we bunkered down, and both Paul and I have to admit we had a very sleepless night, with the tree next to us assuming gigantic proportions in our imaginations as the winds continued to buffet Cazza. We were never so grateful to leave a place and head to the (relatively) warm embrace of the coast. And I later read that some of the winds
were, in fact, of hurricane force!
By the way, the town we were staying in was called Katoomba, but Paul feels it should be renamed Ka TIIIIImber!
We are now in Port MacQuarie, and find ourselves once again living not in our caravan. We are visiting Paul’s friend from his University of Cape Town days, Charles Hopley, and are spending a lovely weekend getting to know his family (wife Jenny, and sons Jonathan, Daniel and Max), going for walks on wind-free beaches, and basically just relaxing. Tomorrow (Monday) we are taking a chance and heading back inland, but this time we will be avoiding the mountains, and instead are going to visit Tamworth (where I was born) en route to Lightning Ridge, to check out the opals and fossils. The boys are very excited (Oliver and William have developed a very keen interest in all things fossil and precious!).
To back track, I am also posting photos of the boys’ visit to Canberra, as well as our one real extravagance for Sydney - a boat trip to see the whales migrating up north. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so fantastic; it was very, very wet, and windy, and the
waters very choppy, and while we did get to see two whales, they were quite far away. But it was an adventure, and I guess we can’t hit jackpot every time! The rest of my weekend in Perth was spent trying to fit everything back into the caravan (including a large number of books that Paul seems to have amassed these past seven weeks, William’s ever-growing collections of rocks, fossils and coins, and Oliver’s big collection of gems!)
Two highlights for Paul over the past month have been chance meetings: one morning at the beach I bumped into a Malawi-born author called Ian McCalman (he has written among others a book called Darwin’s Armada about Darwin’s contemporaries Hooker, Huxley and Wallace - Paul loved it). Paul subsequently visited him and the two of them got on famously. Paul also ran into a bloke called Cas dragging a few truck tyres across Centennial Park, and got to chatting to him about his plans to walk unaided to the south pole and back (evidently this has not yet been done). We’ll be following them on www.casandjonesy.com. Paul also attended the book launch of Sex, Genes and Rock ‘n Roll, by Rob
Brooks, who was in Grade 1 with him in 1976, and who is now the head of Evolution Studies at UNSW. It’s been an interesting time!
Until next time, stay well, and warm!
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Justine
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Not quite as relaxed...
I tried to leave a post after the last update but for some reason couldn't submit. Was trying to say how well you are looking Alexa, completely relaxed and refreshed, you look fantastic. Will watch the coming posts with interest, especially if you continue to have non relaxing experiences like the above!!! Lots of love to you and all the boys. PS - finally got my eyes done, hooray!!! Am thrilled.