Road trip take two. Along with all the usual suspects from February’s little excursion to Nelson Bay plus a few others, we were back on the road off on another exciting weekend away!! This time to an area south of Sydney called Jervis Bay about 3 hours away, although once again we may have got lost…and added approximately an hour to our journey…life is hard without a tom tom at hand.
We left on the Friday which was ANZAC day here in Australia which is a big deal! ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (I think) so it’s a national holiday to commemorate soliders and in particular the battle of Gallipoli. Roads are blocked off, parades march, trumpets sound and it’s a really special day for the collective memory of Australia. ANZAC biscuits incidentally are delicious, big oat filled cookies which were sent to the troops back in the day – yum!
Loaded with CD mixes from the nineties, munchies galore and questionable directions to our accommodation, we took the scenic route down the coast, stopping off a couple of times on the way. We stopped at….the blow hole…and yes…it is how it sounds, a hole that blows. I’m just googling it now so I can better explain what it actually is before I embark on an inarticulate monologue which really tells you nothing at all. Ok, here’s the official line “Under the right conditions, large waves enter the mouth of the Blowhole & compress the air within the inner cavity.
As the retreating water leaves, it is forced upward by the compressed air, as the mouth is still blocked by the receding wave. The escaping air causes the loud “oomph”, which accompanies the water spout. “So the gist is that there is an impressive “oomph” of water. Maybe you have to be there…
We finally got to our lodgings. As there was a big group of us, 12, we hired two cabins for a couple of nights in this little holiday village. The cabins were awesome, and we were right on the beach. Now I had expected a pretty dismal weekend of weather to be honest, it’s been raining in Sydney the past couple of weeks and the temperature has most definitely dropped, but as luck would have it, the sun decided to shine on Saturday, which was glorious. A bunch hit the beach in the morning for early surf (I’m still pretty sure the sharks are waiting for me so I skipped this little activity) so we chilled on the beach in the morning and figured out the plan for the afternoon. Some headed to another beach for some snorkelling action but found themselves attacked by seaweed, a couple went kayaking and the rest of us went on a horse ride through a close by forest which I loved! I used to horse ride when I was really young and loved getting back into it, although I found that my allergies had not subsided and by the end of the two hours I was sniffling, eyes were puffing, a rash was building up and my throat was tightening…all worth it though of course!
Then we all headed back to the cabins with particular tasks – food for team one, alcohol for team two. A couple of hours later and we were well fed after a bbq on the balcony and making our way through the grog. We had planned to stop off at this water park called Jamberoo near Wollongong on the way back but apparently it was winter now and the place was closed. So after another morning of beach action and surf, we all met in town (just like a bustling little seaside town in England) for some lunch before we made our separate ways back to Sydney – some to re-visit the amazing blow hole, some to see its wonders for the first time and others to get lost on the way back again. All in all it was another awesome weekend with everyone!
