Pittwater drive

We just had a great drive up the coast to Palm Beach, Whale Beach . The houses are AMAZING on such steep hills. Oh the life of the rich.....
Quiet night for us NYE. Will watch the Sydney 9pm fireworks on tv. Live Pen
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Narrabeen

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Beach at Narrate

We left Lucas and Emily at shoalhaven heads and we are now at Narrabeen on the northern beaches if Sydney. Weather perfect. The beach across the road with a river running into the sea. There are 2 big rock pools. Lovely. Would be fantastic to have an ocean pool at bathed beach in freo. Mmmm Reece has started dinner. I can smell garlic. We had lovely time with the Ryan. Email and phone connection wad hopeless, but now all good. Toby Cocks.wedding today and I hear it is 41 degrees.....Hell..glad we didn't go home for the occasion. Love Penelope

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Christmas day!

Lucas Loves his big truck from GiGi

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Lucas has his own special tent

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New dress from GiGi

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Happy girl with Lallie

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Xmas

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Pretty comfy in Lallie bed

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Lucas too

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Emily has arrived

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Gerroa, NSW

Hi All, another instalment. It is now Thursday 21 Dec. The weather has been a bit up and down. one minute blowing a gale and then nice and still. Today we had a nice long walk along the beach. the water was nice an glassy but very soon it all changed when the wind picked up and whipped around our legs. we were glad to get off the beach.We have just been into Nowra 15 mins away to get a few bits and bobs, but poor old Reece has just gone back again as he is having trouble with the battery in the Engle fridge in the car. My Moslem friends have left today. They were so nice. I said to one of them i wouldn't be able to wear the garb she had on as i am in a bath of perspiration most of the time, i just wouldn't  be able to go out. The grandma is only 64 but my word she looks older then you MUM..  they gave us some Lebanese rissole thingies that were divine.

Jo and fam arrive tomorrow. Reece has the decorations up and I have bought some gold balls for Lucas to out on the tree. Reece has al sorts of boy  jobs to do with Lucas.and has bought some special choc milkshake mix.

Time now to go to the pool. 

Love Penelope

Thanks Rozza for my pressie. Found it and perfect spot for it .just what we needed.

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Xmas lights

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Sunset at shoalhaven heads

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I put mascara on... can you notice

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charlie the dos

Tennis with Doddsy

Sunday 16 Dec 2012

We are now very nicely settled in our spot at the Shoal haven Heads Tourist Park. it is a great possie with the river right in front of us and the ocean just over the small dune, a very easy walk. pretty drive from Bateman's bay to here through rolling hills, large timber forests and beautiful beaches.it is very nice. Margaret River seems a bit sad in comparison to this. The weather has not been really hot which suits me very well....the sun is shining now but lots of rain yesterday afternoon. it was very cosy in the van. we had a big walk along the beach this morning, but boy it was rough with w huge rip. it is known as the 7 mile beach and you can imagine why..... a huge long beach. the surf club is right here too. one of the fells told me this was as bad as it gets, so lets hope by the time the little ones get here it will be a lot calmer. However the river in front is OK and there is a lovely swimming pool here with a great kids area. there is also a little jett in front and Reece is planning some fishing with Lucas. The connection isn't that good here so it has taken a long time to down load the snap. 

Rozza i hope each day you will be more mobile with your new knee. I am so sorry a can't be with you but i send you lots of love. Madgie how is the packing for the cold Xmas..Anth no need to spend too much on Xmas pressie for Max as he will be happy with a tennis ball or an old cardboard box to make a cubby. Mama i hope finally the phone is OK now.

there a some Moslem families here. ..i felt quite daring in the pool in my blue bathers and they were neck to knee in black in the water...ugh nno way for a swim...

We made it.

View from caravan to river at shoalhaven

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The Journey Begins

Hi to all those reading this blog. 

We are well into our journey now as it is 12 Dec Wednesday and we have been on the road for 10 days. I shall go back to the beginning.

We left Fremantle on Sunday, Dec 2, and had our first night at Boondi Rock, roadside camp 523 km from Perth. then we had the trek across the Nullarbor for 2 more nights. We averaged 500 - 600 km per day travelling at 90km per hour. I must add that Reece has done ALL the driving and we have done over 3000km so far. Reece celebrated his 62 birthday at Tailem Bend where we had 2 nights. He spent most of the morning doing some work on the hot water system, changing the anode! then we had a long drive to Meningie and along the Coorong. You will have to check your maps to see where we are. the Coorong is a really long stretch of water like a lagoon and looks great coz there is so much bird life after the recent floods. Reece cooked a yummy roast beef on the BBQ for dinner and of course some nice champagne. The caravan site was right on the river.Tailem Bend was a busy town as it is on the highway to Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. Meningie was a much prettier town, and would have been better to stay there. 

Next stop was Boort, Nth West Vic. This was great as we visited on old friend of Di Morrison, Marilyn who is a farmers wife and started a business called Simply Tomatoes. when they bought the property many years ago, they grew heaps of tomatoes and sold the crop to Kraft, but now she picks an acre of green tomatoes and makes really delicious chutney. She sells all over Australia and also into the Middle East.She also has a business where she makes woollen bed underlays and doonas, our beds are more comfy as we bought the underlays from her. we then went on to see Mr Spannerman. this chap makes the most amazing pieces of work all out of spanners which he welds together. They are really speccie.

Fabulous drive through very big dairy country Tongala, and camped on the Golburn River. which brings us up to yesterday when we arrived here at Julie and Ian Dodds place at Barnawartha, near Wodonga in Victoria. Cousin Ian had just returned form work flying the qantas plane back from Bangkok  The farm is in a pretty valley which looks very dry now, but the garden here is a delight. i am sitting on the back deck listening to the sprinkler click away, the birds singing, the 5 chooks wandering around, sun shining. it is beautiful. We are camped right near the vegie patch which Julie has got growing very well. So lovely to be here with them. We collected Jake, now 12, from school in Albury. he has got really tall. He finishes school tomorrow the holidays.  We had some champagne and a beautiful leg of lamb that Doddsy cooked on the Webber. Jake loves his tennis so after dinner he challenged Doddsy to a game on the court here. it doesn't get dark until 9pm as they have daylight saving. Tonight Matt comes down from Sydney . He has some leave  from the Navy before he starts at ADFA in Canberra.   

I hope this isn't too boring . 

I hope I will get better as time goes on. We leave tomorrow and will be at Shoalhaven Heads on Saturday.

Now I will attempt to attach some photos.

Love Penelope

Happy birthday Reece.

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