We're Going Camping

We're off to Bello again to get some more work, but on the way we're finally going to do some camping! Yesterday we made a shelter for shade and rainproofness - we really need the back door to be open all the time we're camping for precious airflow! It was SO HOT when we were doing this, we had to jump in the swimming pool 3 times just to cool down! We're finally getting a taste of Australian summer.

Dress rehearsal in Jenny and Ray's garden.

Mozzie net

So off we go! We'll tell you how it goes in a few days when I make my pilgrimage to Bellingen library for the internet.

Back in Byron

Special

It has been all rainy and not warm today so to make up for it I just made a Special chocolate cake! Yayyyy. Special = gluten free in my exciting world. The cake actually sunk right down in the middle so there's actually a lake of chocolate goo in it! Cannot wait. We're waiting for Ruth and Lili to get back from dropping a friend off at Palm Beach (someone they know rents there - must make friends) til we can eat dinner which means we can then eat the cake.

Yesterday when we got on the bus back from the city, I realised the trio in front were from the UK (woman with streaky dyed blonde hair, 50s, son with ginger hair, 20s, overweight girl, also 20s). And I thought wow more Poms, we're everywhere. Don't blame us. And I settled down to watch Sydney go by, but you know when you're trying to read or whatever and there's someone talking or spiky music with stupid words in, and you try not to but the words just hook your ear? I couldn't concentrate because the woman and the son were having this loud English argument about how long it takes to get from Bristol to Cardiff. On and on, and on, like, if it's actually important to you today in Australia, couldn't you just agree to disagree and it could all just take 10 seconds? Then they moved onto, I'm not sure what the point of it was, they just started listing roads, I don't know, that were good or something.
'Yeah there's the M4. And the M32.
'A3. M25.'
'The M5.'
What the hell?! We're about to go over the Harbour Bridge! Isn't that kind of interesting? British road names?! Really?!
FINALLY they got off the fun game of naming fascinating strips of tarmac and moved onto whether of not the mum had given him a playstation for his birthday one year in the past, or whether he had payed for it himself. Or maybe it was his dad that bought it for him. 'Oh my godd Murm, oi toatlee peed for it moiself!! Nooo! Ohh my godd Murm seerislee, you know nothing!' To help them get to the truth they went through what he got for his birthday every other year of his blessed existence, then explaining how an Xbox is different from a playstation (plee-stashuuun)....OHMYGOD SHUT UP!!! We are in SYDNEY LOOK LOOK! Stop ruining my journey with your boring lives!

I have asked a few people but somehow the Aussie's don't seem to mind the Poms, which I'm surprised about, as we do seem to be constantly invading the country and then sticking together in groups.

Very surprised. I didn't like us much on the bus.

An independant outing

The family was going on a rollerskating dog walk the other morning (alright so only Lily was going to be rollerskating but it sounded impressive), and I thought I'd better not push it and feel awful for weeks so I stayed at home. After a while it was clear they were on a much longer mission than I'd anticipated, and I wished I could go and do something. Then I realised I was being stupid and of course I could. I've driven the van before, therefore I can drive the van! Where would I like to go? A beach! Shelly Beach, along from the Bower where Ruth and Zappa went snorkelling the other day and I watched. Yes. I quickly got my stuff and set off before I could talk myself out of it.
Me and SatNav jollied ourselves over to Shelly and startled ourselves by finding a park (parking space) in under 30 minutes, and I did my first parallel park in the van! First time and everything. Look I even took a photo:

Ok so it was about 2 miles from the curb but...I still parked. It was even legal.
I walked down and started walking towards the beach, to discover it was full of people and their children. I didn't fancy that so I chose a nice rock to sit on, which had a nicer view anyway.

I found rockpools and little crabs which all ran out of the way when I saw them.

I have discovered this sport the Australians have: Stand-up paddle boarding.

These guys are so funny, they paddle their boards along, very, very slowly, concentrating hard on making it look like they are totally unbothered by going anywhere, what anyone else is doing, or just anything. Super laid-back dudes. Eventually they find themselves (not that they meant to but they're not at all surprised either) near a little break making little waves. They made sure they didn't paddle in a straight line there, they meandered about making sure you didn't think they got their on purpose. They slowly paddle about, looking unconcernedly at the little waves, for a while, then after a while, find themselves gently carried along on one. They go with it. Then they go back to looking at them again for a while.

I'd seen one guy doing it the other day when Ruth and Zap went snorkelling, and he did give off a very cool air. But on this occasion there were several of them out there, and it somehow cancelled out the cool, because it looked like they did have a purpose, seeing as they were all in the same place doing the same thing, no matter how much they squiggled about on their long-winded way to get there.

Also I like coffee!! That is, I like coffee from this particular place beside the Bower. The other day when we were there, Ruth and Zap got coffees and I liked them, so today I got my own - they do decaf ones!

Ahhh so good. Apparently Australia does really good coffee because they have lots of Italians here. And just like the Italians do the best hot chocolate, turns out they also do the best coffee. They superfroth the milk and it tastes like it's made with double cream, but no, just lots of air. It is GORGEOUS.

So. On the way back to Dingo, with my new dress on (must show you it), and my luscious frothy coffee in hand, I felt pretty chuffed. I wanted to go out and have a nice time, so I just DID.

Dingo and Woody

Dingo is the name of our borrowed van! A Toyota Hiace. It's called Dingo because it has so many dings in it. It's great apart from it's got no power steering and someone's put one of those silly small steering wheels on it, so we're going to change that so that I have a chance of driving it somewhere and not dying of exhaustion.

Yesterday Zappa set about making a bed in the back of it. He was thinking of making a fold out sofa bed thing, like in the ambulance but folding out sideways instead of lengthways, but when we sat on a mockup of the sofa the ceiling was too low for it so we went for just a bed, with storage space underneath.

We went to Vinnies where Zap found a cheap double bed - lots of wood to use, and ready made slats. Then he got some plywood from another Vinnie's.

 Turned out the double bed fitted in the van perfectly! So Zap just stuck some wooden blocks under the legs to make the bed higher, put the ply on top of that, and voila!

Our new camper van, modelled expertly by Lili.

Today has been SUNNY and WARM, and I am loving it. This morning we went to pick up a little camping stove we bought on eBay. It's retro yellow and pristine and new. Zappa's just gone off to pick up the camping fridge, but I'm a bit knackered from the stove trip and the guy lives an hour away so I'm staying here in the garden with Woody.

Time for An Introduction to Woodford The Special. I was going to do a seperate blog for him as he does deserve his own entry but as I'm here and he's so pretty, I don't think he can stay anonymous any longer.

He is so cute! He's a really good dog. He's super pretty and everybody basically queues up to give him love, but he's not a spoilt brat dog, he's not annoying, he wants to please so does as he's told, he travels well, doesn't need brushing and is fun to play with. Watching Woody and Lee play is hilarious. He's got the perfect home too, he gets taken on long walks everyday and everyone adores him. Oh and he doesn't smell. In fact to me he smells sort of biscuity, like fake tan. Could explain the colour. He's a pomeranian x fox terrier, although he looks a bit chihuahua-ish to me, I suppose pomeranians are sort of chihuahuas with ridiculous amount of hair? Anyway he's great.

A Mini Adventure

Oh WOW I just got to drive my dad's MINI!

It

was

AWESOME! What an amazing car. You have to double declutch it from 3rd to 2nd and it's convinced you're freezing all the time so it makes the cabin boiling hot for you whether you want it to or not, but that all adds to the experience. Maybe it just wants people to wear as little as possible in it. But you could never accuse it of ill intentions because it looks so damn cute!