Jervis Bay

Jervis Bay is home to Booderee National Park and also, or so the record books say, home of the whitest sand in the world. The location of the white stuff is Hyams Beach and one Mum told me today that she once complained to the local council that there should be warning signs to state children should wear UV protective eyewear before playing on this beach because of the danger of the reflective properties of the sand. In retrospect I am thinking she was having me on!. Still the sand is whiter than white and the sea azure blue and the bush a dense yellowy green.

We travelled along the scenic drive South from Sydney taking in the coast through the Royal National Park and then past Wollongong to the Shoalhaven region. We stopped in Kiama, home to the famous blow hole. The tidal surges have formed an underground path and chamber with hole. When there are good storm surges and waves the resultant spout apparently can reach 60 metres with a massive thwuump and has swept spectators to their death. Well we waited there or a long, long while and the most this could manage was a mini thud and a micro mini spurt, took a picture though!

We rented a lack lustre apartment with a good deal of resident cockroaches ( I am learning new techniques of killing the critters though) and stayed in Huskisson. The redeeming features of Huskisson are the jetty where Nick and Oliver spent a good deal of time fishing, the fish and chip shop where we purchased our shrimps to slap on the barbie and finally the oldie worldie cinema where Ol and I had the best night eating mountain of popcorn and watching some dragon movie.

We spent almost every day going into the Booderee National Park which is now co run by the Aborigines of Wreck Bay and the National Park Authority. The park houses a pretty fantastic Botanical Garden where we sighted out first two kangaroos, unfortunately in the middle of procreating. Caused a bombardment of questions as you can imagine, the male then followed us us the road, coughing which made Al pretty nervous!. It was all quite confusing for the little guy!.

We also spent a day to the West in Kangaroo Valley. The village is very pretty and the country side lush and green with, again, steep sandstone escarpments. We had a leaflet that gave us a bush walk to do that was supposedly on the level. We walked along a fire trail in deep bush for about an hour and were disappointed when it suddenly came to an end. It was meant to take us to a fabulous view point on the top of one of the sandstone cliffs. Nick decided to push through the bush in front of us and there it was. Two rocky-out crops before the most crazy precipice into bush far below. It was safe for the boys as we kept them far back. This was where we had he most peaceful of picnics. Nick had the binocs and spotted some native birds. I had three boys and spotted dirty nappies, naughty behaviour and the odd ball biter!.

Talking of ball biters.... imagine a red ant with a black tail and mean saw like pincers for mouth parts. You will have the red bull ant in mind. Now on our trek back out of the bush we saw a few of these and then Nick found a hole...he stuck a stick down it and gave it a good old wiggle. Well there we all are. All eyes eagerly peering and jeepers, you have never seen anything like it, at least a couple of thousand ants come after us. These things are an inch and a half long and they didn't look friendly. I am not joking they chased us and Ed and I were the first running. As we left Nick told me that he had read an article in a medical journal that stated you could use these ants to close a wound. Just get them to lock their big jaws either side of the injury and pull the head off when the jaws have closed pulling the two edges of the wound together. Since returning home I have found an excellent short film on these little critters, you should take a look. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDRFTcNW0go Won't be getting to close to these ones again!!

Whilst in Kangaroo Valley we decided we should see a winery and chose the one closest to us, Yarrawa Valley. I didn't read that visits were by appointment only. We drove a long way and finally reached a narrow track that headed up a steep hill. It was here that we were stopped by another family looking for the same wine estate. We followed them and arrived with our noisy boys and intruded slightly on this other couples tasting session. Nick and I took it in turns to sample a few of the vintages whilst entertaining the boys in the garden. It was all very relaxed and unpretentious and we came away with a few inexpensive bottles. Good memories!.

The week went far too fast and now it is back to school runs and work. Nick has completed his first paper and has a few in the pipeline so fingers crossed for publications. The other fellow ,Anthony, has become a good friend and comes to dinner regularly so I am trying to improve on the old cooking skills. Still I am taking solace from the fact that Australian Masterchef has started and the contestants were wowing the judges last night with lasagne, meatballs and fish fingers, all staple recipes in the Toni Book!.