Blogs from Ballina, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania - page 2

I forgot my joggers. They are sitting at the front door of the house. That's a really stupid thing for someone attempting to rediscover waistline to do. My solution is to walk in my hiking boots, not only are they heavier, they make me look like I have cankles :( Guess that's punishment for forgetting my joggers. Tonight I'm sitting at Ryan's computer typing, in a vain attempt to stop Noah from crying as he falls asleep... they are probably the wrong words as they make it sound like NOah is drifting off into a peaceful dreamland. In reality he is fighting every step and cries if I leave the room... yay me. We have had a couple of fun days though. Yesterday we went for a proper swim in the pool and had our first ... read more

Had ten days in Ballina at Shaw's bay caravan park on a waterfront site which is very pretty but very breezy as well. The park is very well looked after & is in a prime position with a pub & good takeaway food shop next door.Ballina is a nice town with lots of good shopping & handy to the scenic drives along the coast & hinterland. We went to Nimbin but did'nt find the cookie lady so we had a nice drink at the Nimbin Hotel. The scenery on the way is very like England with green rolling hills which come to an end at the rainforest which was saved from logging by the struggle of the hippies in the 1970's. So good they won the fight it would be criminal to have lost the forest ... read more

In case you missed the memo- we are in Australia! We spent our first week in Sydney car hunting and doing a bit of sight-seeing. We found a little Mitsubishi hatchback within our budget with low milage (kilometerage?) and jumped on the offer. She's a bit old and shaky, but runs great and fits all our bags! We left Sydney early yesterday morning and headed north to Ballina- a 9 hour drive that ended up taking us 12 due to traffic, weather, and, of course, car troubles. Our car started acting funny about 7 hours in when Taylor went to put the blinkers on; basically, the car stopped and restarted itself while we were driving. So we pulled over into a gas station to see what was wrong. When we tried the lights the car died ... read more

On Thursday 28th of April we arrived at dad’s uncle John’s place at Medowie, just north of Newcastle. Some of Dad’s cousins and their kids came over for dinner. The next day John took us four wheel driving on the sand dunes at Stockton beach. We drove to ‘tin city’ (about five houses that people had built among the sand dunes). We then visited Kat, Jembe and India at Smiths Lake for a night. Ash vomited 17 times during the night and filled up 3 and a half lunch boxes. The next day was Dad's birthday and we drove all day to Ballina. The next two nights we stayed at this really good caravan park in Ballina which had minigolf , a games room, a jumping pillow and a camp kitchen. We went to the Byron ... read more

Well the day has finally come for our trip. All siutcase are ready. Everything is done, only to get ourselves ready. 4 hours togo. Next blog will be from the States. Talk to you all then. Pete & Lil... read more