Thank you Teva!

I'm over the moon! Finally, I've made it across the creek and have been able to walk on the beach thanks to a pair of Teva sandals from Athlete's Foot. These sandals are designed to be worn in water and have a strong arch support. They also have a drainage system so water escapes though the soles of the shoe. Whilst they are not quite as good for my foot as wearing orthotics and joggers, I can wear them on a short walk without any ill effect (so far).

In a small way I have experienced the disappointment and frustration of not being able to go somewhere because of a physical injury and my deepest admiration goes out to those who have to experience this on a daily and permanent basis due to a physical disability. I know that my injury will heal EVENTUALLY however it did leave me feeling quite depressed at times.

Over the past 4 months since re injuring my foot, I had often thought that someone should invent shoes with arch support that can be worn on the beach and in the water. To my amazement, someone has. There is quite a range of "water shoes" available on the Internet available in the US. Thank you Teva for making shoes available in Australia! I'd love to hear if anyone has bought any other types of water shoes with arch support.

Now after boring you with stories of my footwear, onto something else.

We will be moving further up the coast on 26 Dec to the Corindi Beach Caravan Park. Although a site became available here so we could stay until 3 Jan, we have decided to move on to experience somewhere new. Weeks and weeks ago, we sent emails to a number of caravan parks to see if anyone had vacancies from 26 Dec but most came back with "Sorry, fully booked" or "Sorry, no dogs allowed during the peak period". However, the caravan park at Corindi sent us an email today to let us know they had a cancellation and asked if we were interested. "Which one were they again?" I thought to myself. But after a quick look on their website, they are a nice little caravan park right on the beach. So off we go again next week.

There was a bit of excitement in the caravan park here today. 2 horses had decided to go for a run down the road and as we are at the end of the road, decided to run around the caravan park for about an hour. They were finally caught on the grassy slope just behind us after their owner finally arrived. All the rest of us could do was watch them run about and get out of their way. One of the horses had a couple of cuts on it's legs but on the whole I think they had a good time visiting us.

Bye everyone, Rosy

Knowing who one is..

The modern day media and pop psychologist have a lot to say about finding oneself. I used to think that it was about reminding yourself of who you were, before family, community and the government got involved with our individual lives. But I have discovered that it is not about that at all. It goes deeper than that. For me, it is about realizing what my role in life is and to honour it. It's not husband, brother, son, Manager, supervisor, web developer, marketer or any of the other jobs I had in corporate land. It actually came to me in a dream about a very early job I had in a bank - a 'teller'. In the land of symbols and metaphor I understand that as being a teller. Like a storyteller, or like Jessica Fletcher in Murder She, Wrote. Using my intuition I gather my observations on a situation, let them mull around in my head for a while and then a movie/fairytale/book that I have watched or read will pop into my head that provides the basic outline of the difficulty I or someone else is experiencing. This is what makes me whole as a person. I also understand now that it's not how I write something that is important, but what I am writing about. That is where the gem is. Storytelling is not just about grammar, but the emotions that let fly with the words. Just ask J K Rowling.

So there you have it. I don't have images to put up on the post, but I can tell you how I feel. Like Scrooge after meeting with the three spirits and like Tiny Tim after Scrooge decides to help this family. God bless everyone, and to all a Merry Christmas.

p.s. And just to think. I didn't need to buy anything to feel like this.

Tripping about

We've been here at Moonee Beach for 2 weeks and I've got to say this is a great caravan park (which will now be abbreviated to c/pk as I'm sick of typing it out in full) especially if you have dogs. A few more caravans and campers are starting to turn up and I suspect this will increase as we head towards the busy Christmas holiday period. We're confirmed here until 26 Dec. but may have to move to another c/pk as this one is fully booked to fill the gap until we head to Iluka on 3 Jan. Fingers crossed there is another cancellation at Iluka and we can get in there earlier than 3 Jan. We had no idea just how booked up ahead these c/pks get during the Xmas school holidays.


Anyway, more about what we've been doing since you last heard from us.


Last Friday we put Angel into the local kennel for an overnight stay so that we could spend the day at South West Rocks to see Stephen's sister, Robyn sing at the local country club with her quartet Sharp Focus. The 4 girls sang up a storm with their barber shop harmonies of Christmas songs to an auditorium full of local senior citizens. They even managed to get 3 of the male seniors to dress up in drag as part of the act. The notion of prim and proper little old ladies definitely went out the window when they roared with laughter seeing the men strut their stuff on stage. As Robyn and girls had to make tracks back to Sydney immediately after the show, we explored the little village and had lunch at the local Seabreeze Hotel (across rd from C/pk and beach). I highly recommend their fish & chips - best I've had in ages.

The next day we took a drive to visit the Dorrigo National Park, which is another reason why we needed to have Angel doggy sat for the day. The Dorrigo Rainforest Centre has a spectacular skywalk going out above the rainforest treetops which I had been keen to see. We were not disappointed - the view was MAGnificent (see photos). We headed into Dorrigo to take a look around and stumbled across the Dangar Falls just a km or 2 out of town. The falls were definitely falling which probably is thanks a lot to the heavy rain which fell the previous day. While we were there a guy and his wife struck up a conversation with us. It turned out that Phil and Jan have been travelling around Oz for the last 8 mths in a caravan and were also staying at Coffs, so we stayed talking to them in the carpark for ages getting lots of good travelling tips. Really nice people.

On the local side, we've been exploring the shops up here (of course). Coffs Harbour has a CBD area just off the Pacific Hwy with a pedestrian friendly, flag lined shopping street. Then about 1km up the Pacific Hwy heading north you have the Park Beach Plaza, full of boutiques, shoe shops, Target, BigW and Woolworths. There is a Homebase shopping area just across from the Park Beach Plaza with all the furniture stores, auto parts, pet stores, etc. So everything is conveniently laid out. On the approach into Coffs there is a big Bunnings and all the auto mechanical places. I've also found quite a few recycled clothing shops which I love rummaging through.

Emerald Beach is the next headland just to the north of us. We took a drive up there the other day to take a look back at Moonee Beach. It was a fantastic view looking back but also looking out at one of the 5 Solitary Islands which has the white lighthouse. The headland area is called the Moonee Beach Nature Reserve (National Park) and we got to see 3 kangaroos who were grazing in bush just next to the car park, they seemed used to people being around as the surfers come up there all the time to access the beach. There is a paved walk around the headland which we'll do another day when the feet aren't so sore.

Nearly forgot, we couldn't resist calling in to the BIG Banana for a banana split each. Just as nice as I remember but not as cheap. There is a great puzzle shop there which had the largest jigsaw puzzle in the southern hemisphere on display 18,000 pieces. Sadly, it is now no longer the largest as someone has now put out a 24,000 piece puzzle. Anyone got nothing to do for a couple of years ???

Anyway, that's all for now. Bye, Rosy

Dog Walk/Swim

I thought it was time that I added some content to the blog. Rosy can't have all the fun.

The big challenge of late has been getting Angel used to swimming so that I can take her for a walk along the long expanse of beach here at Moonee Beach. It's actually like getting back to nature keeping an eye on the tide, because we can only cross the river when it is low tide and even then Angel can't touch the bottom. She still has to swim across (I'm not going to pick her up as I have my hands full with thongs, doggie treats, doggie bags and sometimes a camera). Anyway, for the past few days, Angel has hesitantly got in the water and started the dog paddle. I have her on her lead as there is a strong current. It's quite funny as she starts on my left hand side, starts paddling and then crosses in front of me and has the lead extended all the way as the current drags her along. Poor little thing. She is almost out of breath when we get to the other side. although, yesterday, she went across the river before I could put the lead on. She sort of went diagonally, but nevertheless made it across.

The beach itself is about 4km long. Today was the first day that Angel and I made it all the way to the end. It's quite a dramatic coastline when you get up close to it. Angel continues to boss other dogs around, even German Shepherds, but they seem to just be curious about what this noisy little thing is that runs like the sugar just kicked in. She came across a puppy Jack Russell mix, today and they followed each other for quite a long time.

Due to her encounter with the tick, I have been trying to keep her out of the surrounding bushland. The message seems to have sunk in. She doesn't go into the bush and now returns to me without have to receive a command - just a treat. Now I can enjoy my walk as well, without having to be anxious about where she is.

Cheers
Stephen

Welcome to Moonee Beach

This is a beautiful spot to spend a few nights or weeks. It's only 10 minutes drive from Coffs Harbour and we've only just started to explore. Moonee Beach Caravan Park is at the very end of the road opposite a large wide creek which flows to the beach and the only way to get across to the beach is to cross the creek at low tide. So there is no traffic passing by and we wake up to the sound of the birds. The caravan sites are all fairly level (hooray) and most come with a cement slab to put your outdoor chairs, annex, etc on. Nearly every site also seems to have it's own large timber table with benches each side. We've moved ours off the slab to give us room for our chairs & BBQ.

Here are few photos I took yesterday.

More later.

Downs and Ups...

Sorry, it's been a while since our last update. This month has had it's share of ups and downs.

We drove down to Sydney on Nov 6 and were lucky enough to stay at Robyn and Garry's house at Caringbah for the whole 2 weeks we were there. Their backyard is fully fenced so Angel could stay too which was company by their lovely dog, Bella. Although Angel took over Bella's home, beds, backyard and food, I think Bella enjoyed having the company of another dog too.

Cathie and Joel's wedding was held on a beautiful Thursday afternoon at the Gunner's Tearooms, Mosman overlooking Sydney Harbour. It had been pouring with rain most of the morning so it was touch and go whether their wedding would be able be held outside. But the skies cleared up to a beautiful sunny afternoon and the wedding went ahead outside as planned. Everything was beautiful (especially the bride) and we all think she can go into the wedding planner business if she tires of legal work.

The rest of our stay in Sydney went very quickly catching up with family and friends for dinners or lunches, whatever we could arrange. While we were in Sydney, I was able to go along to the ING Direct dinner to celebrate people with 5, 10 (me) and 15 years service this year. There was 1 person with 15 years service, 8 of us celebrating with 10 years and 62 with 5 years. Quite a crowd. It was lovely to be invited as I am on a career break and luckily it coincided nicely with our trip to Sydney. Although it was a good night good to catch up with friends from work again. But don't get me wrong, I'm still not missing work!

We headed back up to Bonny Hills on Friday 16 Nov and made it back to our caravan at about 5pm. As we were planning to leave and head further north in 3 days we decided to leave the caravan on the site where we left it. Out of the blue the following day I received a phone call to say that my 86 year old father who had an existing heart condition, had been admitted to Mona Vale Hospital with chest pains and was waiting to be transferred to the San for an angiogram as soon as a bed opened up. I wanted to go back down in Sydney to be there in case I could do anything to help him. So the next day, I jumped on the XPT in Wauchope and was back down in Sydney by dinner time. Thankfully, tests showed that Dad's heart was not the cause of the chest pains and while we still do not know what caused the pains he is feeling much better now. Meanwhile, Stephen stayed with Angel back in the caravan and had to put up with the van being on a slope for a while longer.

I stayed 5 nights in my father's unit at the retirement village while he was in hospital. His retirement unit is set in lush rainforest with a duck pond at the bottom of the footpath below his unit. One morning while I was making my breakfast I a family of young ducks decided to come up the steps to the front door while mother duck stood patiently on the footpath below. They came right up to the wire door but as soon as I went to get my camera they all waddled back down the stairs again. However as soon as I returned and opened the door they headed back up the steps again long enough for me to take a few piccies.

After 5 days in hospital Dad was given the OK to go home and feeling like he had a new lease on life, decided to come back up to Bonny Hills with me to see our caravan and stay a few days with us. We arrived back up there last Friday and Dad stayed 3 nights in one of the fantastic cottages in the caravan park overlooking the ocean. He's now heading back down to Sydney staying at a night at few places along the way.

So, with all the visiting and being visited out of the way we finally left Bonny Hills yesterday and headed north. With Stephen behind the wheel, we towed the caravan up to a very hilly caravan park overlooking Nambucca Heads, but after seeing how steep the sites were decided to go further north to Coffs Harbour. We're now settled in a caravan park at Moonee Beach, about 12 kms north of Coffs Harbour. Moonee Beach has a small shopping centre with a Coles, pharmacy, newsagency, post office, bakers and a Best & Less opening this Thursday. Across the road from the caravan park is a wide tidal creek leading into the beach which is around the corner. It's nice to be in a level caravan park for a change after being on a hill for 8 weeks.

That's all for now. Cheers, Rosy

Angel Update and Getting Ready for Trip to Sydney

Angel is doing well after the tick attack. Her breathing is still rhaspy and she is ever so eager to get out and do the beach walk again. I am under strict orders not to let her exercise too much and she is allowed only a very short walk out each day this week. I think she is past the danger period.

Bonny Hills Caravan Park has a facility that allows you to store your caravan for $5 a day for a period of up to 2 weeks. The van was in the forest area, which doesn't have many people around, so Rosy and I decided it would probably be better to move the van to the more popular open area. The Manager, suggested we put it in the lot that it next to their residence.

So this morning, we got the van ready for the move and headed out. There was a bit of a tight curve and some exposed tree roots that caused the van to jump. And jump it did. Right off the tow ball!! Luckily I had the chains on so it didn't run away from us. Also lucky for us, we decided to buy a bottle jack, just in case we needed to fix a spare tyre. We were able to get the van connection up high enough to get back on the tow ball. And then off we went to the other side of the park.

We got to our spot and drove onto it and amazingly the van wheel axil was level, which is the first thing you have to do. We were in exactly the right spot. Then the Manager comes over (Judy) and tells us that people who use this spot usually bring it side on, instead of facing down the slope. Remember I said the spot was near the residence? Well it sort of stops the drive through thing happening. So back and forth and back and forth I go, trying to get the van on the levelest part of the lot. Turning the wheel all the way. Back and forth and back and forth. Then....the steering wheel stops turning. I can't change the direction of the car. Shit!!!! We decide to leave the caravan where it is on a 5 degree lean from the left side of the van to the right, unhitch the caravan and try to move the Landcruiser. The power steering stopped working and it was like having to manually turn a semi trailer. Then I called the NRMA. Terrible thoughts were going through our minds as we were off to Sydney on Tuesday, or maybe not.

It was time for lunch, so Rosy cooked this great steak and we each had a glass of wine to calm our nerves.

An hour later the guy from the NRMA arrives and shows us what happened. All the manouvering of the van with putting the steering wheel in lock position (going all the way until it won't turn any more) caused one of the tubes to pop off. He said that the best thing to do, when manouvering a van is to not turn the wheel all the way and keep it there, but to turn it all the way and thing bring it back a little. He was a nice guy and it cost us $10 for the automatic transmission oil.

So the moral to this story is - follow your gut instinct and do what you are capable of doing. Irrespective of whether someone else comes along and tells you differently. Next time someone does that to me I am going to say "Thank you for the advice, but my experience level is only capable of doing this." I mean the caravan was initially in exactly the right spot. Why did I feel obliged to move it?

By the way the caravan is still leaning, but we are only going to be in it for two nights, so we will live with it.