Good news and bad news ...

Frog hunting ....
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First the good news. We have settled in very quickly and easily to this beautiful house – we love it here. It’s open plan with a lovely deck outside surrounded by forest. There is a bowl for bird feed which we regularly fill up and watch the lorikeets, king parrots, cockatoos, and others all vie for position as we sit there. There is also a bush turkey (dicing with death at this time of year I would have thought) that keeps muscling in but Lynn showed us how to get rid of him with the hose. At night we are lulled to sleep by a very persistent frog just outside our window, but as one person we met in a campsite said when the frogs were quite loud, it’s a reassuring noise really as it means there are no snakes about. So does that mean I need to worry if I don't hear frogs?! The only thing I’m not too sure about are the Laughing Kookaburras who seem to find something very hilarious every morning at about 5 o’clock and obviously want to share it with the world.

Patrick not quite catching that one! He's in there somewhere but not attached to his green board.
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Outside the house the area is beautiful- forests, lakes, hills and beaches. It’s much more built up than the west coast but we are managing to find National Parks with quieter beaches that you have to walk to and fewer people. Also 9000 km and 2 months later we have actually broken through the cellophane on the body boards and competed for space on the beaches with the cool dudes out there. I think we pretty much hold our own and we have actually “caught” one or two waves.

We’re only about 1½ hours from Sydney so we’ve seen Sam and Emily a couple of times – they came here at the weekend and we went to Sydney on Wednesday ( I also met Kerstin – the German assistant 4 years ago at school there). It’s so nice having family within striking distance- I could grow to like it! The weather is much better now and we are enjoying the peace before …

…..the bad news. Unfortunately last weekend torrential rain caused a freak “tidal wave” on the River Ding which normally flows quite peacefully past our house, causing it to break its banks and flood the house, the cottage and the garages. Fortunately (for us but not for them) Dave and Chris Hood are staying in the house while we’re away and they, along with many helpers, have managed to minimise the damage by removing sodden carpets and raise furniture as soon as it happened. They have all been amazing and we are so grateful for all their hard work in the cold and mud to sort as much as they could as quickly as they could. Things are now drying out I gather (slowly but surely and it will undoubtedly speed up once the heating is fixed) but we are going to come home after Christmas instead of the new year. We wanted to come home straight away but were encouraged to stay to have Christmas with Emily and Sam by our kind friends.

We’re heading down to Sydney on Christmas Eve and won’t be coming back here as planned. Disappointing but we’re lucky to be able to still have Christmas here thanks to all those people at home.

So blogging time is running out but I think there’ll just be time for one more before we leave. We hope you all have a very happy Christmas – I’m sure we will raise a glass to friends and family at home - especially Dave and Chris and Will.