The week we turned into Aussies, by Heron and Sitka, Oceania Week 15

by Dr Jocelyn Land-Murphy

The week we turned into Aussies, by Heron and Sitka, Oceania Week 15
Wamberal to Forster, 296 km (total cycled to date 3902)

Heron: Is it true that daddy gets himself treats on blog night?
Jocelyn: Yep, he bought gf chocolate chip cookies for this one.
Heron: So if we write the blog instead, can we have the cookies?
Jocelyn: I don’t see why not…
Sitka: If we sit here and talk about the week while eating cookies, can you type it for us?
Jocelyn: Sure, go for it!

Sitka: Surfing is awesome!
Heron: I think we are supposed to give more detail than that. We were in Wamberal and the Warmshowers host Rod asked us if we wanted to go surfing the next morning. Yes!! He brought us down to the beach behind his house with a long surfboard. Sitka went first.
Sitka: Fun!
Heron: It was scary when you had to go under the waves, when they were going to curl.
Sitka: One time I actually balanced for almost the whole wave. Rod helped me get up by letting me put my hand on his head. When they were really big we went straight over them. One curled right on top of me.
Heron: The waves were 2 to 3 meter swells. It was scary but when I got on and actually caught a wave it was so much fun. I surfed all the way to the beach two times. It was so cool! Free ride!
Sitka: We are surfer boys now.. Surfer boy-oy-oy!

Heron: We should tell them about the Pelicans. Their beaks look so funny when they are eating

Sitka: So they get water in their beak, hold it there, and then drain it out like spaghetti, then they gulp down the food [mimes a pelican eating… over and over again…].

Heron: Playing ultimate frisbee at Lake Macquarie was fun.

Sitka: I’m hungry, can we have a cookie?

Heron: The rail trail was really cool, it was paved the whole way.
Sitka: Fernleigh track!
Heron: We made more friends at another Warmshowers with three kids
Sitka: and Lego!
Heron: and ping pong and rabbits!

Sitka: And then we saw koalas at Blackbutt reserve.
Heron: It was free!
Sitka: Blackbutt… I have a black butt in these bike shorts [sticks his butt out and giggles]
Heron: Blackbutt, black butt!
Sitka: The koalas were sleeping except one that was eating eucalyptus leaves. They sleep 20 hours a day.
Heron: We also saw a diamond python and big emus. The wombat was kind of weird, it looked like a rodent but it is a marsupial.

Sitka: We had to get our bikes repaired.
Heron: Because our chain was skipping and the tires were worn out after biking almost 4000 km on lots of mountain biking trails with a huge pile of stuff of our bikes. It was crazy, it is going to cost us $1000 to replace everything. We were all grumpy.

Sitka: But they let us rent bikes for free while we waited. The bike mechanic was really nice.
Heron: We got to tour around Newcastle and do pop-a-wheelies and zigzags on BMXs and eat ice cream. Then we rocked 45 km to a campground resort with water slides and hot tub. We got to swim under the stars, and saw the international space station while we were walking back from the beach. They must be flipping around a lot in there. I wonder how they eat.
Sitka: Dad said “cold!” when he went down the slides. In the morning we played miniputt, basketball, tennis and pingpong, and more slides. I got a hole in one.

Sitka: We saw the humpback whales spraying at Tomaree Head, remember that? It only took 10 seconds before we saw one!
Heron: On the tea gardens ferry, number 18 of this trip, we put our bikes on the roof! The really nice skipper showed us bottlenose dolphins around the boat. $100 cheaper than paying for the dolphin tour, and we got the ferry ride too!

Sitka: There was a big helicopter on the Gibber Track, it was really fun. Do I look like a rugby player right now? [wind puffing up his shirt]
Heron: It was so cool when we went inside the Sugarloaf Lighthouse. People used to have to wind up the light. We saw more bottlenose dolphins there!

Sitka: Now we are in Forster! I did like 20 booty shakes in Booti Booti National Park [demonstrates the booty shake].
Heron: Our tent set-up record is 8 minutes and 20 seconds, including setting up the beds and arranging all the bags. We are awesome!
Sitka: We had a picnic with three kookaburras.
Heron: [singing] Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, telling all the world what he can see, sing kookaburra, sing kookaburra, sing your song to me. Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, merry merry king of the bush is he, laugh kookaburra, laugh kookaburra, gay your life must be.
Sitka: Cookie time!