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Published: January 29th 2010
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Pretty as a picture
Carole as a child, painted by her father A Day 272 - Mornington Peninsula
There’s another birthday boy to shout out to today, he might be up a mountain so we might have to shout loud but HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARL!! Hope you have a great day mate. For whatever reason neither of us slept very well last night, we’re in a house again though so it might be as simple a reason as that. We’re just not used to it anymore! I can really see us living in the campervan on the drive when we return to England, or in the chalet at the bottom of the garden - I’m serious!
We have travelling friends to catch up with today, the lovely Carole & Ray whom we blinkingly met first at the Mt Conner lookout in the red centre. We shared the chuckles as a coach tour party arrived to have their photo taken with ‘the’ rock in the background thinking it was Uluru. We went on our way but met again up at the Ayers Rock Resort where we found they were camped behind us. From that point on we chatted when we met up on walks and when we headed off to Kings Canyon
we found that Carole & Ray were going there too so along with Jane & Tony we all camped together. We had a great happy hour with them and then on the way to Alice Springs we all spent the night free camping at the Finke River rest area. What a hoot that was, wood collecting, dinner and then breakfast over the open fire. Great company, plenty of laughs and a new travelling friendship had blossomed.
Carole and Ray have kept in touch with us through the rest of our travels and as they live in Mt Martha on the Mornington Peninsula we thought it would be fun to pop over and see them so arranged it for today.
It’s a quick journey from Rye and Mt Martha is gorgeous. We’re totally bowled over by their home, it’s stunning and the setting is just awesome. It’s nestled in a maze of gravel tracks but close to a boardwalk leading straight to the beach. We spend time wandering through their home admiring the paintings by Carole's father that are hanging on the walls. He was a very, very talented man and they’re absolutely stunning. Many of the paintings capture
the local area around Mt Martha and are truly beautiful, we’re totally in awe. The prettiest of all though is one of Carole as a little girl, the colours and the happiness of a child are portrayed so well.
We loved catching up with this couple; they’re really nice people and fun to be around. Carole set the TV up to play through their holiday photos and it works really well plus of course it’s great to sit and be reminded of the beautiful places we visited earlier in our trip. Uluru, Kata-Tjuta and of course Kings Canyon were just stunning, we really loved our time there.
Carole had organised a fabulous lunch for us all which went down really well and then we went out for a walk down to the beach via the nearby boardwalk. It leads us on a lovely stroll through a great setting and then delivers us onto the beach. We wander further along chatting as we go and come past the brightly coloured beach huts lining the shore, they're gorgeous but come with a hefty price tag at around $140 000! Carole points out the old position of her family beach hut
when she was a child and explains how it was destroyed in a storm and then never rebuilt. What stands in its place now is a large defence wall to protect the cliffs from any further erosion but long gone is the sand that used to be just in front of the hut, it's been swallowed by the bay waters.
We wandered back to the house via a different route, sat and ate some more delicious fruit cake with Carole & Ray then headed for home. There’s talk of a camping expedition before we leave for the UK, fingers crossed we can pull that off as it would be fun to be back on the road with these two again.
Our journey back to the beach house took us through Mt Martha and then Safety Beach, two beautiful coastal towns with stunning houses in exclusive locations. We stopped off for cheese platter supplies on the way back as there are more guests expected for drinks at some point in the evening. There’s always something going on at the beach house!
Grant is just a whiz on the BBQ and in the kitchen so feeding 5 extra people
at the drop of a hat seems to come pretty natural to him and he can generally make something out of nothing much. Prue, Dale and their three children are the extra guests this evening after a visit for drinks turns into an invitation to dinner. Once again the evening easily flows along with plenty of laughter and chat but we have new plans for tomorrow now so we can’t stay up all night as we need to have our wits about us. Tomorrow we need to find our sea legs as we’ve been invited out by Bill on the yacht! Finally, Captain Jack Sparrow wannabe Mr Howells will be tiller at arms.
Dar and Sar
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