Blogs from Shellharbour, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania

Today was goodbye to family and heading south to parts of Australia we have never visited before. The journey had its challenges - like driving across Sydney without using toll roads. WE DID IT! The first odd thing that happened was congestion getting onto the Newcastle Sydney freeway. We found the reason, an articulated truck was struggling to move as one axle of the trailer had its brakes jammed on or bearings ceased. Smoke was coming off the tyres which were being dragged down the road with great reluctance. The noise and smell had to be witnessed! The drive south then ran smoothley - in fact quite a pleasant drive to Sydney. The road is cut through some amazing rock faces in quite rugged country. We turned off pacific highway onto Ryde Road and then let ... read more

City meets country. Literally. Enforced rest. Quiet contemplation as I sit gently swaying in my Peruvian hammock, a keepsake from a former adventure, under the gum trees. Deserved rest I should say. Yesterday, a walk down quiet Mystics Beach reaching the estuary of the Minnamurra river where a very rabble of people met our view, swimming, boating and playing. This morning an early morning stroll to the 'world-famous' surfing beach, The Farm. This is Killalea State Park nestled on a peninsula between Minnamurra and Shellharbour. A strangely ordered and manicured campsite encroached on one side by the sprawling McMansion estate of Shell Cove. An environmental disaster of monolithic proportions. Look South, look South out to the ….range circling Kiama. It is not hard to see the volcanic crater that this must have been long before you ... read more

We arrived back into Sydney on a sunny Sunday morning and took a taxi to our friends Victor and Brynnin's house in Maroubra, where we had kept our truck while we were away. We caught up with them for a bit, took a drive by the beach in Maroubra for a little look at the surf, and then made our way back down to Wollongong where we had our caravan in storage. We picked it up and everything was fine and not as dusty as the last time we stored it which was good. We made our way to the caravan park in Shellharbour and Brett set up and I went and got groceries; we even both remembered which side of the road to drive on. Brett only hit the windshield wipers instead of the turn ... read more

You know, it’s kinda funny that I call this home, because the Northern Rivers area is my real home these days … this is where I hung out most of my life though, so I should give the place some credence! Shellharbour village was once just called Shellharbour. In the ‘olden days’ (when I was a kid) it was a quaint little seaside village, not unlike what Lennox Head may have been years ago. People from everywhere discovered it and decided that they’d all like to live here, and it has turned into a big thing called ‘Shellharbour City’. The distinction has to be made now, between ‘The Village’ and the surrounding areas. The expansion brings much change to the place. The gorgeous cottage I lived in for many years has been bulldozed to accommodate a ... read more

On the Thursday we left Rob an Judy’s place and headed South to Newcastle, where we had lunch with our gorgeous friends there. Melody and I have been good friends since my Body Shop days, and she has carried on with it doing really well. I tell you what - when we left there, not only did we smell scrumptious, we were hooked up with some awesome products too! Our kids all had a blast on the slip and slide - those things are so much fun! Just as well we got a bit of a cool break because the next leg of our journey was awfully hot, sticky and slow! Sydney - YUK! Traffic, traffic and more traffic. It took over 3 hours to get from the northern outskirts to the southern outskirts. YUK YUK ... read more