homeward bound

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The day started in a very civilised way over goats cheese, poached egg, mushrooms and dukkah with a yummy expresso coffee and ended eating dinner on a balcony looking over a mangrove swamp watching the sun go down. Who said travel with babies was hard?

Ok, so as I confessed, it can have its harder moments but all in all this trip has been absolutely smooth sailing... dreamy driving might be a more appropriate expression.

The distance from Sawtell to Karuah (320km) was probably about the biggest distance we have done with the girls and it is probably about the most we would want to do in one day at the moment.

We had a morning tea stop at Kew - a small town as right on the highway as a town off the highway can be. You literally drive up an exit ramp for a few hundred meters and you are in the town which consisted of a petrol station, a pub and a few houses. We did find a park which had a big monument of an axe out the front (symbolising a town axed by a highway?) and some public toilets. There were no tables or benches and we discovered that the grass was wet - this made the dirt stick so much better to the girls' bottoms. Yay. All good though, we made an effort to check out a town off the highway. It really did feel like it had seen better times though, poor little town. We did meet a local - a friendly woman who lived in the house next to the park and had come out to watch us eat. "Twins?" she asked as we were getting in to the car.

We made a lunch stop by the river in Taree again (where we stopped on the way up). Soggy lettuce and left over dried out veggieburger was made more appealing with some accompanying hot chips.

Ameya decided she was over it about 20 minutes before we got to our cabin, so that was pretty good timing really. Can't complain. The girls made fast work our of exploring the small 2 bedroom cabin (in Karuah jetty holiday park). They quickly found the curtains, the toilet (yep, not just the room that houses the toilet), the oven which has a door that swings down but for all intesive purposes looks like something to help little 1 year olds stand up, the floor-level cupbourds with breakable plates and flyspray. Once all this fun had been had Jono and I decided it might be easier to take the girls for a walk. We have a mangrove swamp and a jetty at our back door which made for a nice evening walk. I suspect that our cabin is sitting on 'claimed' mangrove swamp and we are not sure how well this park will do with sea level rise. We were also commenting, as we sat on our deck eating dinner, that if it were summer we would probably be the dinner for the local mosquitos. But it is not summer and it was great timing for a stop. I am getting nervous now because it is way past my bed time so good night.

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Photos

Leila helping pack up
maybe she figured that if she sat in the nappy bag we would not leave her behind

Ameya and I looking angelic
on the track to the beach from our cabin in Sawtell.

The girls checking the surf
at the beach opposite our cabin in Sawtell

view from our bedroom window
It was so nice having all these mature paperbark trees in our backyard. One of them had rainbow lorikeets living in its trunk.

walking on tree tops
Leila and Jono on the skywalk at Dorrigo national park

Leila pointing at the view
pointing is a new thing both girls have started doing on this trip, probably because we have been doing so much of it. "Look at this girls, look at that girls etc. etc."

vine views
Dorrigo national park

brekky
at the split cafe, Sawtell . . . very very yummy. So yummy in fact that we went back for a second time the morning we left.

the rock pool in Sawtell
Such a beautiful rock pool, with views of the national park behind it.

Leila's 2 pitch climb
She nailed this first pitch (cement garden barrier) but we didn't let her continue with the second pitch (deck railing)

afternoon tea or a facial
at our cabin in Karuah

looking back on our Karuah cabin
from the mangroves

walking through the mangroves
a pre dinner walk

Jono and Ameya
take in the afternoon views from just near our Karuah cabin after a day on the road