All great things come to an end…they say. I dont like this say­ing, its so pes­simistic and grumpy, like a sour puss on top of a warm new­born kit­ten. Get off!

But our trip did have to come to an end, but not before we took a drive the long way home. We felt like sight seeing.

The forests in the begin­ning of the drive were so beau­ti­ful and a nice change from the dry­ness of the city.

And there was a lot of it. Green and luscious.

Until we came half way and stopped for a break. We were look­ing for a nice water­front place or park to rest and let the kids run wild, instead we stum­bled on a fancy water­front new devel­op­ment. But it had cof­fee, ice drinks and water. We enjoyed..

Coffee…

The Caramel loved the dec­o­ra­tions and the ceil­ing. I think he was still a bit woozy from the long trip and being strapped down like a mad­man. I think he was smelling free­dom and air..

We waited for our refreshments..

And went out­side and sat on the grass.

Where we drank.

We looked at the scenery.

And Caramel.

Caramel?

He lost it. He was run­ning circles.

The poor boy had a bunch of energy to waste and he sure did.

Unfortunately for him, the car seat was not far away and after we had stretched some limbs and rubbed skin on the grass we were back in the vehi­cle, now rub­bing tires on the road.

The views were now not that inspir­ing and I was get­ting bored.

Freeway.

A truck. A car. A truck. A car. A car. A car…

Yawn.

So did some play­ing with under­ex­pos­ing the sunny day for dra­matic effect.

Hey, those clouds are not half bad.

Nah.

The low point was reached when I started inten­tion­ally tak­ing out of focus pictures.

Yep.

But home felt good.

Its very impor­tant to clean and tidy your house before going on a trip. It makes com­ing back home so much bet­ter. Otherwise one feels like com­ing back to the every­day chores, instead of back to com­fort and warmth.

And this is the end of this trip.

Now I want another.

And another.

Still alive, just man­aged to exceed our down­load limit for the month and we are now stuck with a sloooow con­nec­tion. Which is kind of good, because my com­puter is gath­er­ing dust for real now, but so is my blog unfor­tu­nately. I still love you though, k!

____________

So, if you remem­ber, we left this story of ours with me com­fort­ably in bed, cov­ered in soft sheets, hop­ing that the morn­ing will bring a nice sunny day for us to enjoy the won­der­ful beach around the cor­ner. The best beach, really.

In the morn­ing we were cau­tious. The sky was look­ing clear, there was sun, the hope was alive. Usually we go to the beach in the after­noon and spend our time there until sun­set. But today we scram­bled our things and flew out try­ing to catch the nice weather.

Back on the road, with kids in the back…

All was look­ing fine.

We might just make it…

Fast down the stairs.

Gasp..

Cough…

AWE…

Its mag­nif­i­cent.

We made it. Its sunny, warm and we are here.

Feel it?

How about the soft fine sand between your toes?

Or between your bum cheeks?

Or both?

We have trav­eled, Mr.Blab and I. We have.

But there are very few other places like this one. And since we choose to come out­side of the offi­cial hol­i­days, we also have the place pretty much to our lovely selves.

It does not get any better.

Well, maybe if you have one of those nakid man with you and you rub his soft sandy bum from time to time…

The girls were happy too.

Off doing their thing, explor­ing, cart­wheel­ing, jump­ing, splash­ing and so on.

They went off with dad to walk along the big rocks. Then I took Miss Fab and did the same.

We looked through some rock pools and peo­ple who were fish­ing amongst the waves.

And around lunch time it was time to get some food in our bel­lies, so we drove to town. There we saw the future, or what Caramel Popcorn will look like…or what Caramel Popcorn will look like accord­ing to Mr.Blab.

I dont know, I am not so sure.

We ordered some fresh Vietnamese rolls from this place, the one with the big round lamps.

Then we headed across the road to the park that was call­ing our names.

„Come to meeee…looook…me green…me good…me fresh…me have a bench…”

We had no option, so we went.

At first the man was mel­low, but then he saw the birds.

Then we sent the big girl after to chase him chas­ing birds.

He liked it.

But if you thought this was cute (and you bet­ter, cause oth­er­wise you will be thrown out of my blog!)
wait till you see the lat­est trick this lit­tle fella has come up with.

Ready?

„Are you cute, Dodman?”

Answer:

I have no idea where this came from, but we are lap­ping it up like thirsty camels in a dry spell desert.

Then some more dri­ving around through the scenery and back roads.

And for din­ner we used the bounty from our mid­dle of the road unmanned farm shop from the day before.

Here is what hap­pened to our kipfler pota­toes, corn and cucumbers.

Lovely day really.

But just in case you for­got what it was all for, here is a pic­ture for farewell.
(Sorry if you are in the north­ern hemisphere)

Love it, love it, love it.

Accomplished and snug­gled up in the bed with the soft sheets
with  slightly tin­gling burned shoul­ders
– yours truly.

I slept really good, although our bed was just a queen and we didnt have much room to play with. On the other hand the sheets were soft, really soft, and the pil­lows were very com­fort­able. Or maybe it was the fact that the tem­per­a­ture was cool and after all those warm nights back home, just felt right.

We were awoken by the excited girls, one of them which was a birth­day girl. The gifts were all brought out and ready for dis­mem­ber­ing open­ing. Lots of jump­ing around, torn up paper and it was done in sec­onds. Then the new scooter was taken for a ride and the rest of the gifts up to the kids room and all around really.

Quick break­fast and some out­side fun con­cluded the early morning.

This is where the lala land world ended up too.

The weather pretty much sucked.

There was not a sin­gle blue sky to be seen and it was raining.

But we had orders to go to the pet­ting zoo and noth­ing was going to stop us. Nothing.
So we jumped in the car and took off.

Being in a rainy area has its advan­tages, like green sur­round­ings and beau­ti­ful lush trees.

We had to come to a sud­den stop at the sight of some fresh pro­duce on the side of the road.

We turned and had a bet­ter look.

Right in the mid­dle of the small side road, with not a soul in sight, was this lit­tle set up:

Produce — car­rots, cucum­bers, pota­toes, corn et cetera, et cetera.

Prices — yep.

People to serve — none.

We grabbed some things and paid.

Yep.

Right where it said so.

Ok, dont you just love it?

But I couldnt stay and enjoy this exam­ple of human good­ness. We had places to go.

Animals to pat.

The friend­ship bracelets Miss Fab made were in use and Little B was lov­ing her new bag too.

I love tak­ing „warm” shots when its cloudy and rainy.

And more road snaps (I warned you).

And then we were there.

The goats were sooo happy.

See, because the weather was crappy, peo­ple were not com­ing and the ani­mals were hun­gry. Their usual parade of humans with bags of feed were some­where else, keep­ing dry.

But not us.

They loved us — or wanted to eat us, I am not sure which.

That mid­dle one is Lips. We named her last time because she does this funny thing with her mouth. It looks like a goat thing, but she does it more so than the other ones.

The Dod was into it straight away. He had no qualms putting his hands in just about any mouth.

This one was not hun­gry. Just wanted to sleep.

These ones were from the mob, I think. They were giv­ing me the evil eye.

The ducks couldnt care any less who we were. They just walked around like they owned the place.

And kept on jump­ing in this lit­tle pan. Muahaha, and they think they are All That?! Snicker.

See, another ani­mal has my sons’ hand in their mouth.

This one sucked on it too. You can see it in his eyes.

„I have sucked on the Caramel Popcorn! Have you?”

As a mat­ter of fact…

Then the ducks walked by in their snobby way.  Or was it wob­bly…
Dont judge, my English is not that good.

Miss Fab spent most of her time with the bun­nies and guinea pigs.
She was steal­ing grass from the camel,
which was too busy parad­ing around proud of its caramelized mouth.

And then Mr.Blab had the camera.

Which is not always good.

He doc­u­mented me from bee­hind. In all my glory.

Lets dis­sect, shall we.
The boy is bare footed, cause we were not pre­pared for cold weather. So I had the pink scarf dug from the car to wrap him in it. That top and those pants were the only warmer clothes in my arse­nal too. Too bad they didnt match, work together in any way. But at least he didnt cap­ture the best part. My flip flops. My Birkis.  The look was won­der­ful, I tell you.

Even she was star­ing at me.

The best part for me was yet to come though.

A birth.

One of the goats gave birth while we were there.

It was beautiful.

She licked them so care­fully and loving.

One of them was call­ing loudly and strong. But she was giv­ing the other one more atten­tion. I won­dered if its because she feels it needed her help more.. Also the whole time she would what seemed to me, reas­sure them. They would call and she would make this deep noise, like a grunt. Every time.

We got to hold a joey too.
(joey is a baby kan­ga­roo )

There were a few orphans in the place and they were rear­ing them.

And then on to other things.

You may say, where is this rain? I no see it!

Here

And here:

See, I told you.

But on pic­tures it looks nice, I think.

Too bad its not good for beach.

And this place has one of our favorite beaches ever.

We HAVE to go to it.

The weather reports are not good. We are get­ting worried.

And start think­ing of plan B — extend­ing the hol­i­day to wait for the sunny day…

After pizza din­ner, as ordered by the birth­day girl, we go to bed and hope.

Hope against all hope that the weather is bet­ter tomorrow…

..

It bet­ter be.

It has been awhile since we have had a good road trip. Maybe two years or so. It was long overdue.

Our plans were quite sim­ple,  noth­ing like that time when we drove across the  whole coun­try. Still we were def­i­nitely excited and really look­ing for­ward to it. There was no snick­er­ing at our impend­ing 5 hour trip, lets put it that way. And since it was also going to be a cel­e­bra­tion of Miss B’s birthday…well, things were in a dif­fer­ent dimension.

We piled an impres­sive amount of stuff for a quick 4 day trip. The boot was full. Not only that, but there were things under the back seats and under the front one too. The impor­tant part was that the girls had their own bags „on wheels” and they packed them them­selves with great enthu­si­asm. I miss those times when things like that used to bring fizz in my day.

And we were off. Its a road trip, so be pre­pared for a few…road snaps.

The day was won­der­ful, not a cloud in the sky. Quite promis­ing for us to enjoy one of our favorite beaches in the whole world.

The boy in the back was find­ing his own enter­tain­ment, while I was try­ing to find a spot for my head, so I can get a doze.
I always get sleepy in the car.

Since the school hol­i­days were over and peo­ple had gone back to their jobs and daily lives, the roads were empty.

Except this guy:

4.5 hours and a stop for a snack and to stretch out the old limbs we were off the road and into the bush, on our way to the blue­berry farm.

We love berries. But they are so incred­i­bly, unrea­son­ably expen­sive that we can mostly have them in small quantities.

Unless, that is,

we pick them ourselves.

And this is what we do down here. We pick a huge pile of blue­ber­ries and eat them by the handful.

While some were productive

Others just kept on dig­ging in the dirt and not only that, but throw­ing it in my bucket!

I man­aged to clean it up a bit and fill it nicely with the blue fellas.

We were so fast! It was our fastest pick up ever.

On the way out of the area for pick­ing, it happened.

It did.

I had started to hope it will never happen.

But it did.

I saw my first…

..wild snake.

Just like that, it scur­ried past, in front of us.

Miss Fab was with me, or I would have caused a scene. Ran around like a maniac or some­thing.
But no, I had to be the respon­si­ble par­ent and be calm.

I dont know if that was the rea­son, or just there is noth­ing so freaky about the crea­tures, but I didnt really find it that scary. The snake just passed by, quite quickly. Maybe I didnt have time to react the way I always thought I would. Maybe I was just shocked. Who knows.

Anyway, I sur­vived.  But I am def­i­nitely, absolutely pos­i­tively not inter­ested in repeat­ing the experience.

After we loaded with berries we made our way to the place we rented.

The kids went wild.

Up and down the stairs, care­fully placed all the con­tents of their bags around their room and in the wardrobe and drawers.

The place was nice and spacious.

We relaxed and I whipped up a quick pasta meal.

Which we enjoyed on the out­side table.

Later on a shower and some impres­sively soft sheets ensured a lovely sleep, which pre­pared us for the next day.

(to be continued)