A Lovely Story about a Lovely Walk

It has now been long enough that I can talk about the horror that took place a couple of weeks ago on one of our walks. Either that or we just watched the whole series of Game of Thrones and I didn't have time to write about it.

Anyway, the dad and I had planned to go on a walk up the top of the escarpment. Later on in the morning Aunty Von called and asked if we wanted to go on a walk with them instead. So they drove up to our house and we decided to do a much harder walk from close to where we live all the way up the escarpment.

Side note: If you look on this map you might think that the freeway just northwest of where we live is very close to us. But what you can't see on the map is the escarpment that rises straight up about 400m from behind our little town. Actually that's a general rule in pretty much any map from around here - there is probably some kind of enormous hill that you can't see on the map. 


We got all ready and drove up to the beginning of the walk. Here is a map of what the walk was supposed to be. Along a road left of where we parked, then along a trail looping around to the right, up the escarpment, and back down to our car. So we started off, laughing, joking, generally having a good time. The first part of the walk was road, then what used to be a very small dirt road.

Oh, isn't this fun...

I'm a really good photographer.

Still having fun...

It was when we reached a clearing full of grass that we discovered the leeches. Now, I've known some leeches in my time, but this was like nothing I've ever seen. If you stood still for 20 seconds there would be approximately 30-100 leeches on your shoes. I marked that point as a helicopter on the map because that's what I really really would have liked to come and pick me up. Looking back, the smart thing to do would have been to turn around right then. But no, we continued. And so did the leeches. Eventually we were almost running down the track while desperately flicking any leeches off that we could see on our legs. It was no use stopping to pull them off because (as I said before) 20 more would climb on. The sight of houses and then road was one of the greatest moments of my life.

Picey was right in front of me most of the time, saying every now and then, 'I think there's a leech under my sleeve.' Well I didn't believe him because who has a leech on their arm? Leeches are on the ground, right? Not so much. As soon as we reached the road he took his shirt off and I removed no less than five leeches off his back, stomach, and arms. Loo had some right up near his diaper. Even now I shudder at the thought of it all.

It's hard to see in this photo, but if you know what
you're looking for, there are at least 8 or 9 that I can see.

The bloody aftermath.

We went down to the beach after that to eat the lunches we had packed and to spend some time on the sand, which doesn't contain any leeches. 

Phew, that was a rough time.

BB loves sticks and Chick-Fil-A!

Babycino time!

Yep, that's right, BB had his first babycino the other day! As a little reminder, here are what the cousins looked like having theirs: 

Picey, 2 years old

Loo, 2 years old

BB, 14 months old

Might have gotten a little on his shirt...

So obviously he has a long way to go before he looks as sophisticated as the other two, but I'm sure we'll get there. He did love it though.

Walking with sticks

A couple of weekends ago it was a beautiful day so we set out for a walk. There is a lot of bushland relatively near where we live, but we don't really know what walks there are. I googled some and found one called the Wodi-Wodi track. It looked good, however one page I looked at said '2 hours, hard' and one said '3 hours, medium'. Does that mean that some people make it harder by going faster? I have no idea. But we went anyway, thinking that we would probably not do the whole thing. It was only about a 15 minute drive north of where we live. We parked on the side of the highway and started off on a little track that led up some stairs away from the road. Right after we started, we passed a couple of people coming the other way. As they passed us, one of them said, 'Good luck' in a way that didn't really mean 'good luck' but more 'I highly doubt you will enjoy this/get anywhere.' Interesting. We kept going and walked for about 30 minutes up the track. The first part was in scrub-ish land near the ocean, and then it went up into the gum trees. It was a really nice walk but we ended up turning around because BB had to sleep/we needed food. 

Scrub land in the beginning

In the gum trees

Daddy and baby with their walking sticks*

View through the trees down to the beach below

I definitely want to go back and do the whole thing. If it stops raining at some point this year, maybe we will. And maybe we will find out why we were wished 'good luck'.

This walk spurred me into action to buy this book about walking in our area. My parents have this one which is about the area down near their holiday house and that's where we learned about some of the walks we've done (Drawing Room Rocks, Ben's walk).

*About 2 minutes after this photo was taken, the dad threw his stick off the side of the path. Four seconds after that, BB did too. 

Easter

For Easter Sunday we went down to Aunty Von's house for lunch and an Easter egg hunt. Here in Australia, most people hide real eggs. And by 'real eggs' I mean real chocolate eggs, not actual real eggs that you fry up and eat (like some people thought when I said that). The plastic kind that you put candy in don't really exist here. People just eat chocolate eggs and bunnies and other delicious chocolate things. So anyway, we all had a bucket to put our eggs in. Mine was big because I wanted lots of eggs. And I found lots of eggs (see photo below). I was only made fun of a little for taking the chocolate away from the children. They don't need much though. I was saving them from feeling very ill. Or something like that.

Waiting for the signal to begin the hunt

I'll take that, thank you very much.

Quick, run BB, or your mother might steal your egg.

Where can I hide this thing? And how do I open it?

Mmm delicious.

My Easter stash. 

A Short Update on Everything Else (other than BB)

As I mentioned before, we recently bought our own house. Or villa, to be exact. That means that we share a wall with our neighbours in a little complex of four villas (kind of like a row of one-story townhouses). We have a creek out the front and a little backyard with a deck. I don't have many good photos yet because things always seem to be too messy. We all know who to blame for that...

The town we live in is called Thirroul. It's about 20 minutes north of where we used to live in Wollongong and about an hour and fifteen minutes south of Sydney. Our place is just five minutes walk to the beach so the dad can (try to) do some surfing. There are also lots of parks and places to go walking.

The dad has a new job up in Sydney, which means a two hour train ride to work and back each day. Not so much fun. While he's gone, BB and I keep busy by going on walkings, seeing friends and family, and playing around the house. And shopping. But not too much of that. The dad doesn't want me to spend ALL the money before he even gets home. 

Update on BB

The Bad Baby is... 

ONE YEAR OLD!

(actually he's nearly 14 months old, but who's counting?)

He can: 

... push baby in the stroller...

... help his mother with the chores... 

destroy neatly organised drawers...

... eat a large amount of sand (yes, it's one of his favorite things now)...

... and perform a number of spells. 

He likes to walk around a lot. The other day we went on a walk WITHOUT THE STROLLER. What an adventure. It was only around the block, but it did take about 45 minutes. There were a lot of sticks/pieces of rubbish/bugs that had to be investigated. 

Some words he can say are bird, ball, mama, dada, dummy, hot, and many others that we can't understand but I'm sure would like us to. He understands a lot more than he can say, and will sometimes do what we ask him to do. Other times he looks at us, smiles, and does exactly the opposite. 

What a bad, bad baby. 

A Long-Overdue Update

It's been a while since I've posted on here, due to:

- Friends visiting (early Feb)
- Family visiting (mid-late Feb)
- Moving house (early March)
- Not having the internet for ONE WHOLE MONTH (early March-early April).

So, because of all that, I'm waaaaay behind on what's been going on. I will do some updates of what has been happening, but not in great detail. It would take me a reeeally long time to do everything, and I'd rather concentrate on what we're doing right now.