Opting this year for the beach, a 3 bedroom house at Callala Beach on the northside of Jervis Bay was rented for the weekend. The group consisting of 15 adults and 4 children converged at the house on Friday night providing the local pizza takeaway with a busy night!
With the beach only 80 meters from our front door, Saturday morning began with a quick swim prior to breakfast. The group then split for the days activities. Some headed out on a whale watching tour while the rest of us drove to Abraham Bosom Reserve adjacent to the small coastal town of Currarong.
As we'd previously holidayed at Currarong for a week in the November of 2010, we knew what an awesome spot this was. The girls and I headed straight to the beach, Andy ran around the headland while the rest of the group chose to go for a walk.
On the southern end of the beach, a small creek joins the sea and was a great location to base ourselves. Sandcastles were on the agenda to begin with. We created a whole village of drip castles, buildings, tunnels, dams, roads, rivers and trees. This kept us entertained for some time.
As we tired of construction work, we were drawn to the water. On our walk to the edge we discovered many sea creatures - all dead of course - and stopped to inspect each one. There were numerous blue bottles, a few cuttlefish, random jellyfish, some shell and many dead black birds in various states of decomposition. Not too sure what was going on with all the birds but there were between 10 -20 all within 200 metres.By this point Andy returned from his run, perfect timing to use the boogie boards. The girls had fun attempting to catch the small waves before eventually succumbing to the chilly water and scurrying for the warmth of their towels.
A picnic lunch helped to boost their energy levels enough for them to explore the sand dunes. The first dune had a small slope which the girls rolled, jumped and raced down. They also enjoyed the natural warmth of the sand which helped to restore their body temperature.
Next we wandered north along the beach to the discover the hidden treasures of the rock pools. We saw a few crabs, baby puffer fish and not much else!
Eventually we found ourselves at the Currarong Rock Pool - a rectangular area created by the erosion of the rocks by the waves. My mind wanders back to our holiday two years ago - where it was high tide, our girls were 3 and 1 so this area was not really appropriate. I remember seeing a dad with his daughters roughly 7 and 5 swimming across the rock pool and being excited about the day our girls could do that!Luckily for us, the tide was out and conditions were calm so the girls happily climbed down the stairs and jumped straight in. Protected from the wind, we played and swam in the rock pool for some time before someone shouted 'A whale!' We clambered out on to the rocks to see (a fair way out) two whales jumping and splashing about! At this stage it was early afternoon and we'd decided that we'd exhausted all the beach had to offer...so it was time for ice cream :)
By the time we got back home preparations began for our BBQ dinner. It was scrumptious with everyone pitching in something - breads, many interesting salads and topped off with a very impressive pavlova.
We made the most of sunday morning at the beach opposite our house. The weather was calm to begin with but the wind picked up creating choppy conditions. More sandcastles, wave jumping and a game of ultimate frisbee.
A quick pack and clean up of the house before driving back to Canberra. Halfway home it became very quiet in the back. We were surprised that Ella was asleep as we couldn't remember the last time she had fallen asleep in the car...
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