Chapter 53 - Hastings Point Expedish

In which our hero self-righteously claims that her gentle (though neglected) readers have nothing to complain about, and also gets sunburned ... . again ... 

So here's the thing, gentle readers. In another week and a bit I'll have been here for exactly a year. This is now my 53rd post, meaning I've fully completed 52. There are also 52 weeks in a year, therefore I have written an average of more than one post per week. So stop complaining that I never write to you.

So just before Christmas (December 19) the family and I went on a very fun expedition to Hastings Point, which might be down in New South Wales. If it isn't actually in NSW then it's very close to the border. It was kind of a full afternoon's adventure. We left around 11 a.m., and it was about an hour drive. The family had been there previously and enjoyed it. The object was to see some of the rock pools when the tide went out, and you could sometimes see starfish and other exciting things.

When we arrived the tide was still high, so we just went to the beach, which was kind of on what I think is called an estuary. It was like the mouth of a river as it went into the ocean, or something, I think.

The dark bit moved very quickly and was quite rocky underneath, so we went further to the left where it was shallower and gentler and smoother.

We found ourselves a picnic spot in the shade, from which the above picture was taken.We then loaded on the sunscreen, and, with strict instructions from Sarah to not even dare crossing the dark fast bit, lest we get swept out to sea, we headed over to the shallow gentle bit (not pictured).

At first we all went in and had a bit of a swim. Then at some point Sarah and munchkin #3 got out for a snack, and #3 slipped and cut the back of her knee on some oyster shells or something. So off they went to get bandaids while #2, #1, and I stayed in the water. Well, #1 and I did, anyway. #2 found a very tiny hermit crab just on the shore and was playing with it, trying to coax it into various bits of shells and things. #1 and I were essentially snorkeling, but without snorkels. We just looked around at all the interesting shells on the bottom and collected some. There were also some interesting fish, most notably some shiny pearly coloured ones about the size of my hand, and some zebra fish, which were considerably smaller and more shy. We found many interesting shells, and this is when I got sunburned, because my back was exposed to the sun for like an hour or so at high noon. Anyway. When Sarah returned from the bandaid finding mission we all got out and went over to the picnic site to have some lunch. Actually, the kids got out and walked, and I floated down the stream on a sort of flutter board thingie. I stopped myself at the deep dark rocky bit and went up to the picnic. Luckily I had my Keens on as water shoes, or I wouldn't have been able to stop.

After our lunch break we headed over to the rock pools to do some exploring. It was really amazing. Unfortunately there were no starfish to be seen, but there were plenty of other cool things. I think these things were maybe especially cool for someone like me who didn't grow up near the ocean. There was also many views of waves crashing onto the rocks, which is always a beautiful sight.

The view approaching the rock pools from the beach. The ocean's not really at an angle like that, I just had the camera a bit crooked.

Some of the rock pools...

The view back to the beach.

Waves and rocks. I love them.

See those little green blobby things? I don't know what they are, but they squirted water out their tops, where there's a little hole. It took me a while to figure out, as I'd be looking at a rock pool for for fishes and things, and then the water would move in the corner of my eye. Eventually I caught one near the surface actually squirting a bit of water. They were cool.

I'm quite proud of this one as I caught the wave crashing and actually in the air. I think it's this one. It's hard to tell.

Here's an anemone.

Here's #2's finger, about to touch the anemone.

Here's what it looked like once it hid itself away after being touched.

Here's Sarah taking a picture of me taking  picture of her.

Nope. This is the one with the crashing wave in the air. Pretty good for a cell phone camera, eh?

Here's the three munchkins climbing down the rocks.

At the end of the rock pool exploring we discovered one right on the edge of the beach that was big enough and deep enough to swim in, so the kids went for another swim. I hadn't brought a change of clothes, however, and I'd dried off fairly well while exploring on the rocks, so I decided to just go in up to my knees.

They had fun trying to catch the little fish that were swimming around in there too.

Now here's a really cute story. At one point #3, who's only 3, said "Goodbye Christine! I'm going to Sydney!" and started walking to the other side of the pool. "Okay," I replied, "have fun, don't forget to send me a postcard!"

A minute or two later she came walking back with a handful of sand. "Here you go Christine," she said, "Here's your postcard."

So I took it and pretended to read: "Dear Christine, Having a great time, wish you were here, much love." And then I thanked her and she carried on playing whatever she was playing. It was good fun. To top it off, when she walked away from me to "go to Sydney", she was actually heading south, which is the direction of Sydney.

Here's another cool action shot, with #2 diving from one bit of water to the next. Once again, I'm quite proud of myself for catching it at the right moment.

I think that's all for now. I do apologise for the long silence, and there's no real excuse besides laziness and forgetfulness. But now it's been about 6 or 7 hours since my awesome breakfast, so I'm going to head home for some foodstuffs. I have some emergency tuna and emergency raspberry m&m's, but they don't really make a proper dinner.

Also, I'd like to point out, due to flukes of time travel and whatnot, I actually managed to do a post for January, completely by accident. I actually wrote it on February 1, which is today, however at home it was still January 31, and the blog seems to think that I'm still at home. So no need to panic about not having done any posts in January. Saved by the timelapse. Or whatever.