English Summer.

Thursday 15th December 2016 - to Shoalhaven Heads

We had already been asked to pay the bill early for the Victoria and Albert Guest House because a new member of staff was working this morning and he hadn't been trained to take payments.  Neither had he been trained to get out of bed by 8am, the designated breakfast time!  We succeeded in finding the cereal and sliced white bread without any help and we turned on the water urn too.  The new staff member strolled in about 8.15am.  I told him we had helped ourselves and he told us it was 'no problem', it obviously wasn't a problem to him!

If you have been a bit jealous of the weather we have been having, you don't need to be jealous any longer.  It rained from first thing till about 5pm and it was foggy and 12 degrees in the morning and only managed 17 degrees later.

We set off without a delay and passed Penrith again.  We felt as if we were travelling through Scotland judging from the place names.  We went past Campbelltown, Blair Atholl and Mount Annan.  The names became more Australian as we travelled past Wollongong and then stopped for coffee at Warrawong where Janice tried to sell me off....

We had our healthy lunch (bacon and egg bap) at a nice seaside town of Kiama.  

What a mucky pup!

No the child locks weren't on!

Kiama is famous for its Large Blowhole and its Little Blowhole.  You would think that having known me for sometime Janice would have had no interest in seeing another Blowhole but she came along anyway.  Both blowholes were blowing regularly but surprisingly the Little Blowhole was the better of the two.  Here is the Little Blowhole.

We continued down the coast stopping at various beaches but even though they were beautiful golden beaches they weren't at their best on this rainy day.  The last beach was Seven Mile Beach and ended at the town of Shoalhaven Heads where we were staying overnight.

The bay at Shoalhaven.

Tonight is our first night staying in an AirBnB.  Our hosts are Cathy and Steve who live in their home near the sea.  They live downstairs and we have the upstairs.  Downstairs was in disarray but we were very pleasantly surprised to see the upstairs was spacious and clean with a kitchenette, shower/toilet and large bedroom.  

We popped out and bought some fish and chips for tea. We were offered two types of fish, one was bassa fish and the other was blue squadron fish.  I asked what the difference was and the girl said that bassa didn't taste of fish!  Not surprisingly I chose the blue squadron fish.  It was nice too.

I have been emailed by my cousin Jack's wife, Jill, who lives in Adelaide. She tells me that they call a group of cockatoos a 'flokka cockies', which fully takes advantage of the Aussie skill for shortening words.  She also says that 'keeping cockie' is keeping a lookout and a 'cow cockie' is a farmer.  Also, words for the Outback are...'past the black stump', 'never never land', 'into the back blocks' and the 'Wup-wup'.  Other phrases I have researched myself include... Trough lolly, technicolor yawn and figjam....I'm not telling you what they mean, you may be shocked!  Jill will be ashamed of me, sorry.