On the road again

We picked the boys up from two nights of building gingerbread houses with their grandparents and headed South out of Sydney this morning.

The first part of the drive down to Kiama is on the Grand Scenic Route, which was disappointing. There wasn’t a lot of grand or enormously scenic on the way; the weather didn’t help but that certainly wasn’t the whole story. Where the poor weather did help, though, was at the Kiama Blow Hole. A long cave worn through a rock shelf sees big Pacific waves rush through and then erupt, geyser-like into the air. Thanks to the unsettled weather the waves were pouring in and the Blow Hole put on a fine show.

Our destination for the day though was further South: Jervis Bay. The bay is an enormous, almost circular inlet ringed with white beaches and trees. The water is incredibly clear and even on a cloudy day managed to look amazingly blue. We went for a walk along the beach and had a great time playing at a spot where a little river had formed a lagoon. The combination of the river and outgoing tide turned the lagoon’s outlet into a minor raging torrent which eroded the sand banks in front of our eyes – and which we helped along the way.

After dinner we drove down to Greenpatch Beach. There are a couple of beaches there that according to the Guinness Book of Records have the whitest sand in the World. I’m not sure how to judge that in any absolute sense, but the sand is certainly fine and clean and very, very white. We walked down to the beach surrounded by a chorus of cries from hundreds of parrots and lorikeets flashing through the trees in blazes of red and blue. On the ground underneath the trees, Eastern Grey kangaroos were grazing and one was feeding her joey.

A great day all-in-all: It’s good to be travelling again; and it’s good to be home.