The night walkers were active again last night and our sleeping arrangements became rather scrambled by the morning, much like the eggs the boys had for breakfast. Jarrah and Fletcher ended up in bed with Andrea which meant that she couldn't sneak out for an early morning walk without Jarrah wanting to tag along.
But what a beautiful walk through the mountainous streets of Phegans Bay it was. Andrea, Jarrah and I roamed the streets looking at all the beautiful homes and finally achieved some much overdue exercise in the process. Most of the homes in the area are built on poles due to the extreme slopes which leads to some interesting designs and innovative solutions to get around the rock formations.
Jarrah had enough of walking the steep streetscape and decided to catch the local bus, which unfortunately for him didn't actually come. So he ended up having to hoof it back to Annie's place with us.
We took a drive along the coastline through Woy Woy to Umiga Beach, where we had the first obligatory playground stop for the day. It was actually a pretty cool playground complete with giant climbing spider web and extreme flying fox. It was adjacent to the beach, the sun was shining and the coffee was good. Win win!
The only way to coerce the boys from the playground was with the promise of lunch, so away we went. It was a pleasant drive to Terrigal where we had pizza in a sidewalk restaurant in the sun. This seemed to satisfy the boys' appetite, for a few minutes at least.
The things you see. We've done a lot of bug watching on this tour, and Chief Bug Spotter Fletch (under his current alias of Will Turner) found this one just sitting on a hand-rail as we walked down the main street. Wicked!
This bug was seen annoying the pelicans at The Entrance.
We arrived at The Entrance, internationally known as the Pelican Capital of Australia, in time for the daily pelican feeding.
Many years ago the local beachfront fish and chip shop would dump their leftovers on the beach which would attract the local population of pelicans. It became such a ritual that whenever the staff were late in throwing their scraps out, the pelicans would cross the road and come up to the shop to be fed.
This developed over the years to a more formalised feeding session at 3:30 every day where it seems the world's entire population of pelicans congregate on the feeding platform known as the Pelican Plaza, for their daily intake of fish.
Local businesses provide the scraps, and volunteers provide an entertaining and educated commentary about the pelicans, bird and marine life and general information about the area. The pelicans' medical conditions are observed, and birds are often removed from the water to have hooks and lines detached from their wings, gullets and other parts of their bodies.
Feeding pelicans is an interesting activity in itself but it has a realistic endurance limit of about 10 minutes for boys aged between 3 and 9. So, lolly shop!
Lollies N Stuff - 'International House of Candy' is strategically situated adjacent to the Pelican Plaza. Even I've got to admit it is a pretty cool shop! It sells a huge range of Aussie, American, English, Kiwi and European lollies and treats. There is over 150 different bulk lollies that you can scoop yourself, and in excess of 1,000 different varieties of lollies from around the world! Yikes!
After much deliberating, Jack and Jarrah settled on some Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans and had had fun trying to feed Fletcher the vomit, earthworm and baby wipes flavours.
We shared a lovely gourmet BBQ dinner with chocolate pasta and ice cream for dessert. Well, those of us who made it to dinner, anyway.
Later we all settled down for another evening with Luke Skywalker and friends.
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