Bargara

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Spent the morning out on the veranda, reading our books and chatting to Matt’s uncle – Andy, who popped round for a catch up. It was lovely for Matt and Andy to catch up as they don’t get to see each other that often, and after several hours of chatting Andy headed off and we headed out for the day.

Today’s outing was a little different however – I was driving! Matt and Rowena have kindly allowed me to drive their car and placed me on the insurance, so now was the time to get in and have a spin of their 1.8L Audi. It is a beautiful car to drive, so smooth and handles well, even on the country roads here and up the muddy bank which acts as the drive way to and from the house.

First stop of the afternoon was Nana’s Pantry – a gelato that Kel had recommended last night. Inside was nothing short of heaven – mix’s for breads, cakes, biscuits, different lentils, nuts and the best bit, a whole section of chocolates, sweets and then there was the gelato (ice cream) counter. I was very excited to see they had yoghurt coated sultanas – something I had been looking out for but to no avail so far, so after stocking up and Rowena getting some sweets we headed to the ice cream counter. There was such an array of flavours, so we settled on a wafer basket between us, which allowed us to select 6 different flavours – it was goooooood!

Filled with yummy ice cream we headed to Kelly’s beach in Bargara. We headed along the main street which ran parallel to the beach – Great Yarmouth sprung to my mind, except the area was surrounded by trendy bars and cafés, gorgeous sunshine and crystal blue water, and no crazy golf…..so nothing like Yarmouth really! We drove to the end of the main area and up to the beach at the far end, where, as well as the sea there was a small inlet which had a large sea water pool behind for people to swim in. We settled here and spent a while swimming around in the pool – safe from the threat of jellyfish, unlike the last few days. After a while we decided to have a dip in the sea as well and I enjoyed the slightly cooler water and jumping the waves.

We settled down to read on the beach but the black clouds started to roll in, despite remaining warm and it started to rain. At this point we decided to head home, and we jumped in the car for Kate the chauffeur to deliver us all safely back to the house.

We were all pretty hungry so we decided on an early dinner at 5.30pm of home-made wedges, a big salad and the salmon we had purchased from the fish market on Christmas eve with the prawns. Matt cooked the salmon on the bbq, and it came out amazingly, the quality of the fish was just stunning. Dinner was accompanied by the Pimms I had made up in the morning, so all in all you couldn’t ask for a nicer dinner! Our evening consisted of watching the Hangover on dvd which was very funny, and then sitting around in candle light chatting and consuming a cider or two. Perfect end to what has been an amazing Christmas break!

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