Saturday, May 28, 2011

Great Sunny Times

All work and no play makes bogey a dull blog. And Jack want to shoot himself, despairing as he may at the annual disgust that is spend the taxpayer money-a-thon so we can spend it all again next year. I note the last entry on this thing that I spend hours on and no-one actually reads was from Easter, over a month ago. In some way this makes me feel bad, but also good about my powers of endurance and resistance, since I am only now just tucking into that Lindt bunny with a warm cuppa.

So what can I share with, er myself, from the last month? It’s not like travel has been scarce, although even this was mostly packed into one week... Wagga on a Monday, Ballarat on a Tuesday, Sydney on a Friday. And Saturday, which was a blessing courtesy of blue skies and breakfasts. And Canberra is still here, still charmingly beautiful as it descends into the freezer. Dry as a bone, cockatoos causing havoc, the usual. Masterchef is back, and – is it me – or is it just a wee bit too early for the sentimental backing piano and tears already malarkey? Too many cooks and all that... Still, it’s eminently watchable escapism that makes me hungry and gets me cooking lemon meringue pies, and crispy roast pork belly, and... I think tomorrow a nice warming Lamb Shank casserole.

Clearly sounding more and more like one of those grumpy old men, it was definitely time for some real life escapism today, and what a very happy day it was. This is what you live for... pleasant cruising, sun-soaked brunch by the water, beachside ambling, rock pool adventures and pebbly scrambles, flat whites and sand, and a little fish with potato scallops. What we are looking at is a quintessential South Coast day trip I reckon. As ever focused around eating opportunities in between gorgeous walks, the early-ish drive down spurred on by the fact that you can be eating brunch by the water at Batemans Bay.

No guilt trips on this trip, the creamy scrambled eggs with bacon and mushrooms and toasted sourdough fuelling the spirit and body for a walk in nearby Murrumarang National Park, the classic Depot-Pebbly express. Although not so express, what with taking snaps and exploring rock pools and reading books. Departure point is one of the world’s more serene car parks – a gravel clearing surrounded by mightily tall and straight spotted gums – and an initial trundle through a rainforest gully down to the water. The cool of late autumn all too evident in the shade of ferns and palms and creepy creepers.


But out of the forest and into the sand, the sun warms and turns things quickly into a T-shirt day. I reckon shorts would have been okay too, bearable anyhow. At Depot Beach, which looks nothing like any depot I’ve seen, it’s time to hit the shoreline and meander from sand to rock to pebble to sand to pebble and rock together and then the – yes – sand at Pebbly Beach.




Here, just a scattering of people for company and probably some of the cushier living kangaroos... sunning themselves, eating green grass, generally looking a bit stupid but not really bothered kind of thing. It’s a tempting proposition if you like grass.


I didn’t eat any grass while here, neither did I eat the small quantity of crackers and smelly French blue cheese I brought with me. Best save it in case I get stranded and have to eat my own arm. I think my arm would go quite nice with a bit of Fourme d’Ambert. Then again, anything would. Alas, I didn’t get stranded and the Arm-de-Gaulle lives another day; though with the incoming tide a few of the pebbly stretches back to Depot Beach were fast becoming intimate with the Tasman Sea and required some careful negotiation and luck.


Back in civilisation, I satisfied myself with a coffee instead, and it is without doubt hard to beat a sunny day, a flat white, and a beach. Tomakin Beach to be precise, just one of the many little populated bays south of Batemans where retired folk come to retire, Toyota pick-ups come to pick up fish, and dog walkers come to walk dogs. There’s something very appealing about this way of life. I sometimes wonder about moving to some random coastal town, but then I think I maybe need to wait 30 years so that I could fit in and play bridge and go to the RSL for a Senior’s Special Schnitzel. Still, nice coffee for a small backwater.


Being 4pm and almost winter (and still in my T-shirt oh yeah, suck on that UK), the day was nearing its end, and seeing as I had been so disciplined in refusing to eat my arm, I decided to have a little twilight fish supper back in Batemans Bay. I wasn’t going to, but, you know, when in Rome and all. Then it was all over, and I rushed back to write this blog entry and eat Lindt bunny. It’s nice to have something to write about, something enjoyable and refreshing to share with me. Let’s not leave it so long next time, hey.

Sunday, May 01, 2011

Love Bunnies

Guffaw chortle spiffing dress darling. Super day in the park, horsey horsey rah rah. Hot totty to starboard Harry. Whereto one’s fascinator? OK, that’s the discussion on the merits and demerits of the royal wedding out of the way, let’s talk in more common than an upper middle class wealthy commoner from an affluent Berkshire village terms about recent events in my life. I know, it’s all about me. Er, yeah, this blog is really isn’t it? Jeez, how vain am I?

We have been blessed with an Easter and Anzac Day public holiday fest providing five days off in a row. This offered a sedate if annoyingly not quite work-less start to the break, at times pottering around the leafy colours of Canberra once more to marvel in its comfort. A walk through Grant Street with a coffee in Manuka an adventure in yellow. A meander among the Botanic Gardens with a good book an episode in green. And a hike up Red Hill a multicoloured party of bush and burb.




The botanical love affair continued a little into Easter Sunday, an early drive up to Sydney interrupted by the Mount Annan Botanical Gardens on the edge of the suburban sprawl. A strange place, more like a country park than a garden, full of BBQs and picnics and gentle Sunday driving of Holden Utes and souped up Commodores. Closer in to the city, the sun was holding out down at Maroubra Beach, a place of sandy walks and cliff top reads before the day disappeared all too quickly, bringing a stream of endless overnight rain.



It was a decidedly dodgy start on Easter Monday for the main event of the break, a trip down south along the Grand Pacific Drive and beyond. The first part of the drive is not so grand, but you do kind of see bits of the Pacific... well Botany Bay at least, as you work your way out of the southern industrial fringed suburbs of Sydney. But such is the proximity of wilderness in Australia, this soon gives way to immense sandstone bushland in Royal National Park. At Audley, where the road crosses the river, a boatshed provides plenty of watery frolic options. The best undoubtedly a canoe paddle through a calm creek cutting its way through the sandstone. The photos etched in the mind rather than captured here for posterity, the camera remaining high and dry.



The road winds through the park and spits you out atop huge hummocks plunging down to the leaden sea. Apparently, a perfect spot to through yourself off a cliff with the aid of a hang glider. Many were and many more were watching.



More my cup of tea was a cup of tea, or actually a milkshake in a small seaside town further along the road, before the rain returns at Wollongong and the highways merge and snake their way through blue collar grit and surfside shacks. Home for a few days was Kiama, or actually, a B&B perched on a hill above Kiama.


Among many things, Kiama is blessed with a blowhole and places to eat. It’s also merrily positioned on the coast but with a lush hinterland of pasture and national park, a place where rivers plunge off the escarpment and make their way through crafty villages full of shoppes towards the wide sandy estuaries of the coast. Old favourites such as Morton National Park, the Big Potato, and Kangaroo Valley reside here.





The Grand Pacific Drive supposedly ends somewhere down here, yet the road carries on regardless, all the way to Melbourne. Kiama provides a fairly civilised stop, a chance for actually rather good Thai, and scrummy Mexican, additional weight to carry forth on the now more boringly named yet still with ironic royal connections Princes Highway. This stretch rarely touches the coast, but ploughs a few miles inland through Nowra and Ulladulla and somewhere in between this stretch is fast becoming my favourite secret coastal hideaway. So secret I am not going to name it, but needless to say it has pretty much the perfect sand, bushland and calm crystal water combination.



With the sun emerging and providing warmth, the shorts were allowed out for a little play, the feet bare and caressed with the surprisingly mellow water. It was idyllic while it lasted, but un-idyllically it didn’t last... a shower and scary seagulls further down the coast confining fish & chips to the car, a stop at Pebbly Beach thwarted by cold winds and clouds, and a final call in at Batemans to warm up with coffee and cake. Just the right combo to make the ride up and over Clyde Mountain somewhat queasy, but survivable nonetheless. Now chasing the remnants of day across the tablelands, the last vestiges of the holiday light disappeared upon entering Canberra, but this being Canberra, disappearing in a blaze of dramatic red flamed glory. A sight fit for a king. Or a commoner like me.