Saturday, May 26, 2018

Hiding Away in Mystery Bay

A recent visit to the skin doctor for a check up resulted in the recommendation of preventative face peel treatment for me thanks to my fair sun damaged skin. Having previously expected to be doing this in 5 years time, it took a little while for me to recover from the fact that it needed to be done now. After the initial shock had worn off, we discussed the best timing for this treatment. The process involved purchasing very expensive cream called Picato (I actually needed two boxes at $175 each!) The cream was applied to my face once a day for three days. Picato induces cell death and therefore kills the cells associated with keratosis (sun spots). As a result the skin reddens, dries out, cracks and peels off over the next 2 weeks. With this prognosis, I started the treatment on the last day of Term 1 and subsequently took the school holidays off. So my birthday was a memorable one but not for the right reasons....I was on day 4 of the treatment program and not looking very pretty!


The next day we packed the car and ventured off to a new spot on the coast - Mystery Bay where I was able to hide away while my face did its thing. We rented a lovely house nestled amongst tall eucalypts and within walking distance of the beach. It was a great find!

The house itself was interesting. From the layout, it seemed that the original house was built for a couple - compact and quaint. It had a mezzanine with queen bed, open plan kitchen/dinning/lounge and the bathroom/ laundry combined. Lots of natural timbers and wrought iron balustrades gave it a warm and homely feel. It looked like the second large bedroom complete with ensuite, walk in wardrobe and interior access to the garage was a later addition.
A large enclosed outdoor area with tables, chairs and bbq worked well. Having been through the house we were still wondering where the third double bedroom and bunk room was. Part of me was worried that we'd misread the info however a  walk around to the back of the property answered our questions - a separate building! The perfect kids retreat....or so we thought....



With an hour or so of daylight left, while Andy was off running we headed down to the beach for our first dip in the water. Mystery Bay is quite sheltered thanks to a few rocky outcrops. The water temp was rather chilly so we didn't stay in long but felt refreshed and tingly. We were excited to spot several small stingrays! The sunset brought beautiful colours and softness to the beach. A nice way to finish the day.




Friday, May 25, 2018

A Taster

We've been getting a couple of small eggs every few days now for about a month! Not yet up to supplying the household needs but at least a step in the right direction. Our suspicions are that the eggs are from the two bantams - Maple and Mystery. As you can see, Maple's is the smallest creamy coloured egg and Mystery's is the whiter slightly bigger egg and the last brown coloured egg is a store bought one! Willow and Clover are yet to produce anything and probably won't until after the weather warms up or so I have been told.


The chickens, we have decided are not the brightest sparks. They like to roost at night on the chicken coop roof rather than inside the house. With overnight temperatures dropping quickly, I think they may be forced to work it out!

Also Mystery and Maple don't seem to like laying their eggs in the nesting box. We have found their eggs on the roof and on the ground in random spots around the coop. When they do manage to lay them inside the house, it's usually not in the nesting box despite our attempts to show them by placing a golf ball there!





Thursday, May 17, 2018

Little Miss Sparkle

Pippa isn't the only one growing older. At the end of last term, we all ventured to the mall for the much anticipated trip for Ella to have her ears pierced! Everyone was a little nervous, but the piercing now done with what looks like a staple gun involves no noise and was over quickly. Ella was proud as punch with her new look!

  Before

 During

 After - look at that smile!

Old Age

Poor Pippa - her old age is definitely creeping up on her. Recently celebrating her 14th birthday (that's 98 in people years!), Pippa has had a few trips to the vet in order to sort out her incontinence issues. Thankfully the sleep incontinence has been sorted out with the help of some medicine.

And so at the moment we are slightly regretting our decision not to include a dog door as Pippa now is unable to last the night (6 hours) without going for a wee and unfortunately we have been cleaning up a puddle every morning. Much to Pippa's disgust, we've put her in nappies!!

It's not only Pippa's waterworks that have become less reliable. Her memory, hearing and sight are all not as sharp as they used to be. For example, she frequently scratches on the back door wanting to go out only to have the door opened but then she refuses to head on out. A little push of encouragement gets her out the door, only for the door to close and her to turn around and tap back on the door wanting to come back in! This scenario can happen 4 times in 20 mins! This drives us all a little crazy but she doesn't seem to notice!

Sport, Sport , Sport

As the days roll by so do the sports.

We said good bye to the 2017/2018 Little Aths season. Lots of friends and fun. Katy is looking forward to the next season as the age grouping will be based on the year of birth rather than the current overlap of Sept - Sept meaning her great friend Mira will be in her age group!




Term 1 at school is a whirl wind of carnivals with both the athletics and swimming and just last week was their cross country. The girls enjoying competing and picked up a few ribbons between them. Ella is off to the Zones for Discus while Katy will be going to her first inter school Cross country race next week.








Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Easter Egg Hunt Activities

As we were walking the final few kilometres to the car on our hike, Aoife and Ella were ahead deep in conversation. It turns out they decided they wanted to plan an easter egg hunt for some littler kids. We told them to come up with a proposal and present it to us at the cafe.

Anyway we generally agreed to the idea and suggested they plan the hunt for the following afternoon. Wondering who they were going to invite,  the list dwindled from 20 (lots of people away being Easter), to the Candy family - Jessica and Lewys. The location then switched from our place to Aoife's house taking advantage of the bigger backyard and with hot weather forecast, the pool! Aoife and Ella continued to liaise over the phone during the afternoon, making arrangements and preparations! There were costumes (including bunny ears), bunny footprints, easter baskets to be constructed.

The next day,  Ella requested that she be dropped over early to Aofie's to allow time for the final set up. The guests were instructed to wait at the top of the driveway. Aoife gave Lewys, Jessica and Katy their baskets and pointed out the chalk bunny footprints and the kids were off. Once inside, the bunny chalk footprints changed into black cut out prints which wove through the lounge room to the back door.




Outside, the black rabbit (Ella) made an appearance, dropping easter eggs as she hopped away! Eagerly the kids collected the chocolate eggs! Ella was clever to double back on herself, picking up any missed eggs and re dropping them in front of the kids. Soon however all the eggs were collected and the kids were directed inside for the next activity!




In the kitchen, the white bunny (Aoife) instructed the kids on how to dye a boiled egg. A nice array of coloured eggs were produced without any spillage of the food colouring water!






We enjoyed an afternoon tea of cake, fruit and chocolate before taking a refreshing dip in the pool! All up it was a wonderful afternoon with Aoife and Ella received accolades for all their hard work in producing a fun time for others!





Thursday, May 3, 2018

Under the Stars

Lesson learnt - never say never to Ella! As we were enjoying the beautiful light created by the setting sun while sitting on our dinner rock, Ella mentioned wanting to sleep there. 'You can't do that' was my initial response with many common sense reasons floating in my head as to why. Meanwhile Andy suggested that perhaps Ella could stay up (on their mats and in their sleeping bags) to watch the stars and head into the tent when they got too cold.

With the darkness comes the dropping temperatures. It wasn't long before Katy and I retreated into the warmth of our tent as did Eoin. The bigger girls - Ella and Aoife along with Cath and Andy remained on the rock gazing at the emerging stars. Drifting off to sleep I was convinced that I would soon be awoken by the rustling of the tent as the the others clambered in.

I rolled over at 11pm and no sign of Ella or Andy.

They still hadn't come in at 1am.

By 3am, I was busting for the toilet and didn't need to worry about climbing over anyone as the tent still remained mostly empty! Convinced that Ella and Andy had rolled off the steep side of the rock and I hadn't heard, I checked in on them. On top of the rock only 2 sleeping bags could be seen (Andy and Ella's). It was so cold that they'd both completely retreated to the inside of their bags!

Back in the tent, I tossed and turned trying to keep warm and was in disbelief that Ella and Andy were still out in the elements. A few hours later, I woke up to their voices followed by ruffling sounds as Andy dug into the backpacks looking for more clothes. They both sounded frozen as the dew had soaked into their sleeping bags. Andy set about making hot chocolates in attempt to warm their bones!!

As we all emerged from out tents sometime later, it was clear Ella was pumped with herself having lasted the whole night! I was too impressive although I thought they were both a little crazy for doing so!


Post breakfast and being Easter Sunday, it was only right to have a traditional easter egg hunt and off load the eggs I'd been carrying. We scattered the eggs in a nearby boulder cluster and the girls enjoyed finding the treasure.









Eager to get going, we packed up camp for the last time. Keeping on the northern side of the valley, we ambled through the bush looking for an easy spot to cross the Orroral river without getting our feet wet or having to take our shoes off. It was only a 3km undulating walk back to the car but it seemed to drag on. Perhaps that was all the adults were desperate for coffee! Needless to say we dropped past one of our favourite cafes for brunch - Fox and Bow on the way home. An excellent way to finish a wonderful hiking weekend!


Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Summiting Split Rock Peak

Without a fire to keep us warm and content, we all were in bed by 9pm last night. After a long walk, a long sleep was what everyone needed. Waking up refreshed for once thanks to our new thick and comfy sleeping mats, we were greeted by a chill in the air. A warm drink and hot porridge were quickly prepared and enjoyed.

Our first adventure was to summit the peak to explore the splits of Split Rock. The journey was 1km with a ~250m climb straight through the bush, no trail to be seen. It was open for the first 100m as we crossed the marshy area adjacent to our campsite. The remaining 900m was scrambling through dense head height regrowth interspersed with granite boulders.

It was tough going especially for those with the smaller legs. A lolly stop was required to keep spirits high about halfway up. Eventually the sky could be seen between the trees as we neared the top. Excitement levels peaked as we surged to and found the entrance to Split Rock. The climb had taken us 58mins!

Split rock actually has many splits as seen by this sketch drawn in 1971 by Erwin Feeken.  However if you approach the rock on the north east side, you are able to walk the entire way through thanks to an S shaped split. The walls of the rock are impressive and extremely tall something that you can't appreciate from a photo. We wandered through Split rock emerging on the western side. A short break was had as the kids were very eager to explore!






To the south of Split Rock, we found the perfect place to relax a little longer in the sunshine with views of the impressive split of Split Rock as well as our campsite far below!




With intentions of moving camp, we left Split Rock in the warm sunshine and began to tackle the descent which surely would be much faster and easier than the way up. We manage to do a negative split but as the energy disappeared the tears flowed! A lesson on resilience ensured and thankfully the tents were spotted through the trees and all was good once again!

Back at our campsite, we refuelled on wraps for lunch. The girls played in the 'creek' (swampy area) while we packed and sorted. We had decided to wander back down to Orroral Valley for our last night of camping. Loading up, our packs were a tad lighter and we headed off back down the steep slope leading to Sawpit Creek. The group splintered into smaller parties along this section and we regrouped at the junction of the AAWT and Cotter Hut Road for more sustenance.

A baby snake was spotted on Cotter Hut Road by Katy. As the trees thinned, we veered off this fire trail and on to the the grasslands of Orroral Valley in search of the ideal campsite. Criteria included flat protected site with water and large boulder close by. Our search led us to crossing Orroral Creek which required shoes to be taken off. Stepping into the chilly water was refreshing for our sore and tired feet and we vowed to return for a dip.




A few hundred metres later an awesome site was spotted. A quick tent set up meant we could plunge into the icy creek. And boy was it icy...I think I hyperventilated as I dipped my body under meanwhile the girls 'swam' for a lot longer! Back at camp, we ate dinner on our rock as the sunset bathed the valley in beautiful soft colours. We were all tired after another 10km hike with packs and as the sun disappeared, the stars came out, the temperature dropped we retired to the warmth of our tents and sleeping bags....well almost everyone did......