The Shooting Star

Since we've been on the road, Fletcher has become known as our Shooting Star - here one minute, gone the next!  He lived up to his reputation when very early yesterday morning, there was a knock on our caravan door.  A concerned neighbour advised me that she'd just seen a little boy tearing along the path towards the beach.  I had  a look and sure enough there's Fletcher (dressed in pyjamas and gumboots) about 200 metres away, at a flat out sprint heading towards the beach. 

By the time I caught up with him, he was in the men's public toilets.  He didn't seem to know what all the fuss was about.  He'd needed to go to the toilet and knowing that the caravan park toilets had a keypad that he couldn't reach, he'd taken himself off to the nearby beach public toilets!

So now we were all fully awake!  We decided to make it a lazy day reading books and watching the boys play in the Horseshoe Bay park and adjacent beach, just a stone's throw from our caravan.

Unfortunately, we found we couldn't get an extension to stay another night and thus had to make some hasty plans to relocate.  Bummer. 

So, we had to be content with enjoying the view over a not so leisurely breakfast before packing up our mobile home once again and making tracks to a destination unknown.  Enroute we decided that the best spot would be a camping ground at Delicate Nobby and so we set a course to get there via Crescent Head.  Our flexibility shone through once again when we arrived at Crescent Head, a small surfing town with a delightful outlook, and decided to set up at the local caravan park on a site overlooking the river mouth and surf break.

So here we are. 

It was a beautiful day in the (not so hot) sun but we didn't really do much.  I was busy trying to get warm and Bruce played a few tunes on the guitar while the boys alternated between the skate park, the playground and the pine trees. 

We found a bit of time to watch the fishermen on a rickety old bridge catch a bunch of Blackfish and learn a few of the local tricks.

A quick barbeque of chicken and sausages was a far cry from the gourmet stuffings of last night but it seemed to fill the boys up OK.

Very early this morning I woke to the banging of the caravan door.  The Shooting Star was off again!  This time I managed to catch him before he was too far away.  Luckily, because he was headed to the skate park which is across the road at the beach!

Soon enough, we were on the road again.  The boys got stuck into their times tables while we trekked south, headed for Port Macquarie.  We were in the market for a heater as the heating element in the van air conditioner has stopped working (probably froze in Surat!).  Anyway, the Gods smiled on me with Bunnings practically throwing them out the door at $10 each!  I've got to admit I was tempted to buy one for each end of the van.....wouldn't be cold then!!!!!

It was a beautiful drive through Forster Tuncurry - the centre of the Great Lakes area.  Jarrah spotted a pod of dolphins as we crossed the bridge and Bruce spotted a caravan of camels (look it up, that's actually what it's called!) just north of town.

We checked out Elim Campground, a little south of Forster but the rules didn't appeal to us much - no bikes, no campfires, no alcohol.  What?  So we continued a little further south and set ourselves up a lovely little camp at Neranie Camp Ground, right on the Myall Lake, near Bungwahl.

We're the only ones here so we can ride bikes, make camp fires and drink alcohol willy nilly!  Yay!  Oh, and the boys had a screaming competition.  Just because they could!

The rest of the day wound up with some games of Uno, some bowls of Dinner Winner, travel diaries, diary chocolate ("Mum, can we have some of that diary milk chocolate?") and a viewing of the Aussie classic We Of  The Never Never.