First Day of School 2023

Ella started Year 10, her final year at Canberra High School a day early. As part of the Lead team, she helped the newbie Year 7's find their way around the school and settle into their schedules. Katy began Year 8 the next day!

Tathra

Back to our favourite place for a long weekend to celebrate the end of the school holidays! Originally we booked for 3 nights but ended up staying for only 2 as Ella had an athletics carnival to participate in on the Sunday morning.

Thursday afternoon was overcast and warm. As I am not able to bend my knee enough, I was sidelined and hung out near Katy, body surfing the occasional wave. This meant that everyone moved up a board. Surfing conditions were surprisingly good with not too big rolling waves. Katy had an awesome session catching loads of the little waves standing up lots and gaining a heap of confidence in the process.

It was more of the same on Friday - morning ride / walk, coffee followed by a surf. Then back for lunch and rest before an afternoon surf. We bumped into loads of friends and ended up at the pub for dinner with a large group.

Saturday dawned and it was going to be a hot one! After a run / walk and coffee we headed to the beach but the conditions for surfing were terrible. Instead we swam to cool off before returning to our accomodation. We met up with a work friend of Andy's before leaving Tathra early afternoon.

January Hols

Not much hols for Andy or I as we continued to work. Katy enjoyed a week of sailing camp on Lake Burley Griffin with Mira. Ella did a Road Ready online course - the first steps to getting her L's!

I was trying to catch up on the gardening. Unfortunately the raspberries were all finished. We did get a good crop of potatoes, blueberries plus beans, a small handful of tomatoes and a few nectarines and the plum tree was laden with fruit not yet ripe.

The warm light evenings allowed for longer walks!

We had Ember stay with us for 5 days. She is a lovely fluffy dog who enjoyed playing around with Indi!

Sunday Sprint Series for orienteering started with everyone (except me who still can't run) taking things a little more seriously!!

Belated Hogg Family Christmas

With too much happening before Christmas, the Hogg Family Christmas gathering was delayed until the new year where we gathered at Guthega for a weekend of hanging out together and walking!

Christmas Day was held on the 14th January in no real traditional way apart from opening presents mid morning! The activity for the day was to walk the 'new' Guthega to Illawong track as several family members had not walked it at all or only walked half of it last year.

A car shuffle involved Andy and Patrick driving cars to Charlotte's Pass before running home as their morning exercise. This meant most of us only needed to walk one way.

It was a lovely day for the walk with the sun mostly out, nice temperature and an occasional cool breeze.

Back in Canberra!

Home sweet home and was super nice to see Indi once again! She loved her holiday time Nana and Grandpa. It was back to work for Andy and myself while the girls hung out at home. 

It was good to see progress on next door - the slab was down.

We had Leo come for a sleepover as Cath and Eoin drove Aoife to Sydney leaving a 5 week exchange to South Africa! Indi was excited!

Unfortunately Only a Brief Glimpse

We were all really excited about returning to play with the sea lions. It was a lovely morning, a light easterly meant a few small waves but no one got sea sick on the 15min boat ride to Essex Rocks. The tour was fully booked with two boats venturing out.

On arrival we were keen to get into the water. The easterly resulted in a strongish current and choppy water pushing us across to the left of Essex rocks. We could see the sea lions lazing on the beach in the warmth of the morning sun. Sadly none of them were keen to join us. After being buffeted by waves for around 30mins the girls and I headed back to the boat for a rest.

We watched from the boat, with the occasional sea lion making half an effort to move before flopping down again. Sometime after chatting to our tour guide we decided to return to the water. Making lots of splashes and noise, we had one sea lion who came out to investigate. Only Ella and I were in the right spot to see it.

The interaction lasted a whole 15 sec as it ducked by before deciding to go back to the beach and then it was time for us to return to the boat - our snorkelling time was up! Cheekily, the sea lion did come back out to swim a loop around both boats! We were all really disappointed but accepted the fact that these are wild creatures. They are not fed or rewarded in any way to come out to the boat and today they wanted to be lazy!! 

On the boat ride back to the jetty, we were informed that new laws are coming in regards to swimming and interacting with these wild creatures. Hopefully Turquoise Safari's will still be able to continue offering this wonderful opportunity to swim with these amazing creatures of the sea!

In Jurien we stopped for food and coffee before driving back to the Grandies place. It was going to be a hot last day for us. We compared the temperatures between Perth and Canberra - it was sad to see Canberra's max was 23°C which was Perth's minimum temperature! We were in for a shock!

Final Fun Adventure

We waited until the end of our trip to revisit the sea lions at Jurien Bay. The girls loved the experience in 2021 and wanted to come back. Katy, having been quite nervous in 2021 and getting out early was very much looking forward to interacting with the sea lions.

As the sea lion tour began at 7am and Jurien Bay is 2.5 hours north, we decided to travel up the day before. The weather was heating up and by mid morning the temp was already in the mid 30's! We stopped at Yanchep Lagoon. It was beautiful and not surprisingly busy!

The beach is sheltered by a shallow reef and the water was a gorgeous turquoise blue. Swimming lessons were on for some young ones! We swam out to the reef where Katy reacquainted herself with her GoPro.

Back in the hot car we journeyed north hoping for a nice cafe for lunch at Lancelin. Unfortunately out of luck there and so had to make do with a takeaway place. Jurien Bay was not much further. We checked into our accomodation, taking the time to relax before going to the supermarket for dinner supplies.

Late afternoon Andy and I did our own run / walk exercise in which Andy regretted quickly as he overheated!! A much needed swim helped with the recovery. Jurien Bay has it all - a high jetty to jump off and a pontoon to swim out to! The girls were happy!

Filling in the Days.

Life still continued! Grandad was finally released from hospital without diagnosis of the cause of his left arm and chest pain. Follow up appointments in the coming weeks with his GP and a cardiologist might reveal a reason. Although it is a little unsettling not to know, it's great that it is not something super serious which required immediate attention.

The girls did their 2nd parkrun in a week on a hot and humid New Year's Eve morning! 

We ventured over to Ceri and Graham's for an afternoon catch up and ended staying for dinner. It was really nice especially as the kids connected over the orienteering nationals!  No-one made it to midnight though!

Our days continued with the same pattern - beach swim, coffee, jobs around the house / visiting a thrift shop, visiting friends! By now the girls were missing home, their own space, Indi and their friends.

Enjoying a change in scenery, Andy and I ran / walked at various spots around the river. Every time I return to Perth I can't help but notice the amazing array of wildflowers. The banksia's are amazing!

We enjoyed a dinner out with the Grandies at a new (for us) Italian restaurant. The servings were huge and we all rolled out!