Goodbyes

This morning, we've barely woken up when the peace is broken by Philip and the children all arriving with Auntie's newspaper - a regular sunday morning occurrance. Probably, most Sundays, Auntie will be up and waiting for them! Today, the children are confronted with Auntie Sue and Uncle Phil still tucked up in the sofabed in the Lounge which Auntie had been trying to keep secret from the two littlest children so that they won't want it put up every time they call. Next time they call, they will be told that Uncle Phil and Auntie Sue took the bed with them - lets hope that works!

We all have coffees and come to while the kids jump all over Uncle Phil - he definitely has his uses! It's really nice to see them all this morning as this is our last chance before going back to Sydney and then our next flight tomorrow morning. So we have a final catch-up with cousin Philip anf say our goodbyes to him and the children before he takes his leave with the children and then we get ourselves up and breakfasted. Before long, it's time to make our way and before moving on we say a quick and very fond farewell to my Auntie, trying to keep it quick to keep the tears at bay, and we head back to Sydney to leave Auntie to her usual Sunday lunch meeting with friends.

It's another lovely day and getting away before lunch means that the roads back to Sydney shouldn't be too busy yet. Sue and Phil suggest stopping at a place called 'Pie in the Sky' which is a roadside cafe on the old Pacific Highway road back to Sydney, a road that Phil uses when he's out on one of his Motobike rides. Sue hasn't been before but has always wanted to, even though she can't eat Pie! Still, we can so it sounds like a good idea to us and we get parked in the dirt car park only to see three police cars parked, obviously getting their lunch, and Phil makes a mental note that lunchtimes is a good time to use the road and avoid getting seen by the Police! As we get out of the car, another car parks in the corner of the dirt area and there is suddenly a very loud bang and cloud of dust from his front offside and apparently he has had a blowout - that was probably meant for us and somehow, someone else has had our bad luck today - how lucky is that?

We have to negotiate the many bikers and their parked bikes as this is obviously as popular a place for them as the road is because of the bends - when they put in the new Freeway, they made it nice and straight whereas the old road has lots of uphill and downhill bends - apparently what bikers love (along with pies)! The long list of pies makes it hard to make a decision but, eventually we decide and order and Becky wins the paying game, and we sit at a table in the sun enjoying the view over the bush where they have had plenty of fires, but it's all looking good and green today.

Pies devoured and drinks drunk and Sue's eaten her packed lunch she brought with her, so we move on and continue along the old road and before long we are in the Ku-ring-gai National Park and park up in an area called Bobbin Head and go for a walk along the Gibberagong Walking Track through the Mangroves to an area where rock carvings show where Aborigines used to live and used the rocks to make tools and carvings.

There are also some amazing trees growing at strange angles and with branches that make very odd shapes. This one in particular looks like a giant bird perched on a rock!

Then we walk to where there is a Marina and admire the beautiful setting where, all along the edge of the river there are picnic areas with bar-b-q's provided for people to use, all you need to do presumably is get there early enough to claim the one you want - what a good idea. I suppose if we had better weather in the UK, we might have some of these?


After such a lovely walk in beautiful sunshine, we are quite satisfied, but after returning home and getting ourselves settled back in, we decide to go out to a place called Balmoral Beach to get some fish and chips to eat by the beach.

When we get there, it is absolutely beautiful, but unfortunately rather too windy to sit out and eat so we walk along the front and admire the view as the sun sets across the bay, and from the small peninsula that goes out into the bay, we can see the remains of the Shark Net that was used after a number of fatal shark attacks and was erected in 1935 and only removed in 2008! Fills you with confidence!

After a pleasant stroll, we then head off to a Thai Restaurant not far from where Sue and Phil live to have dinner and prepare Becky and I for the next part of the journey. Fortunately, we've remembered the two bottles of almost empty red wine from our two meals out and this gives us a chance to use them up to save them being thrown down the sink - such a waste!