Catching up

It has been a little while since we have had access to high-speed internet, so here is an update post with some pictures. We are still at Grannies in Tugun on the Gold Coast, but will be leaving for some mountains inland tomorrow morning. We are headed to the Hunt Valley (Oz's Napa Valley) for Thanksgiving, and then on to the Blue Mountains.

So to catch everyone up, after Sydney we headed up to Unlce "Brat" place. This is Ashley's Uncle on her mom's side, people from our wedding will no doubt remember him. He is quite a character even by Australian standards, which from my short experience is a country full of characters. Uncle Brat was a very succesful trader on the markets in Sydney in the 70's and 80's, until the crash in 1987. He packed up everything he had and moved to a piece of land he had bought when he was high on the hog, it is in a town named Taree. It is rural, as so much of Australia is and his place is very basic, although he has just added modern ammenities in recent years such as indoor plumbing and bedrooms. Here is the toilet:

It is quite an experience using the lav and looking at Redback Spider pods next to your knee. As Brat told me, "You don't make it to page 2 of the paper out there." The house is a bit tight so Brat and his partner Sue set up a tent for us:

But new construction is taking place everywhere at the place, the porch (veranda in OZ) in this pic was just completed prior to our arrival.

The country around Taree is quite nice and not at all one imagines when thinking of Australia. It looks a lot like the English country side to me and even reminds me quite a lot of the Shenandoah Valley in the great Ol'Dominion.

We went down the road from Brat's about 5 minutes and were at a National Park on the Ocean. Two main differences with Australian National Parks to ours, they are everywhere and no one uses them from what I can tell. This particular park is right on the ocean and had a great lagoon that fills up from waves coming over the dunes and getting caught. Here are Sue and Sam.

Sue finally calmed Sam down after a good 30 minute freak out about the sand on his pretty little feet. After her magic, we played in the lagoon for a good hour and then couldn't get him to leave, so we got another freak out. But Sam loved playing with ol'Kirby the farm's dog:

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After a couple of days we had to shove off, it really is a great place Brat has in Taree. I would find myself at night with him on the porch, often a little drunk, just amazed at the beauty of the place. It is a little like living inside a National Geographic Photo Shoot. Although it sadden us to leave, we had to get up the coast to Grannies. It is a 7.5 hour drive up, so we split it into two days and spent the night in a place called Coffs Harbour. So just three hours up the coast it looked like we were on the Oregon Coast, Coffs Harbour was great. Ash had gotten some place on points for our hotel, which was nice. We went down the main jetty in the downtown and climbed around the marina and a large bird santuary where Sam proceeded to skin both knees on a bridge. Here we are together demanding food of the lady behind the camera:

After a good meal in the hotel, we got a great night of sleep. We woke the next day to finish the drive off and pull into Grannies. Sam was not participating well in the family adventure so the last hour of the drive was somewhat unpleasant. But we arrived and Sam took to Grannie like nothing we had seen before. 5 minutes in we took this picture of the two (don't worry Alli, I have exactly 244 pictures of the two of them for you to look through):

Grannie lives smack in the middle of some of the best surfing spots in the world. Here is the break at Kirra Point, near Coolingatta.

Here are Sam and I with Surfer's Paradise in the background.

The beaches here are incredible. The water is so clear you can see your toes in 6 foot of water. There are no crabs or shells to step on, however, the currents are very strong and the surf on a small day is what VB experiences when hurricanes are offshore.

As Ash has already said, the weather was bit off when we got here. To be honest this November has had the most rain in 30 years. It is like going to Southern California and having it rain for days. We actually didn't mind floping inside for awhile as we had been going for a week straight. Finally the weather did get better and we spent the next 5 days at the beach. As I said before we are off to the mountains right now and will post pics when we can. Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving there in the States.