Sunrise in Port Macquarie

 5:40am, a few minutes prior to sunrise

 Would this make a good spot to view the sunrise?  Nope, a little further along the beach...

 And then it started to rain.  Oh no!

 So we headed up to the Lighthouse.  In this photo you can see how choppy the waves are and the remains of Cyclone Grant on the horizon.

 More choppy wave views.  My husband informed me that the ocean is usually calm at sunrise, and that the choppy waves were a result of the Cyclone.  Mother Nature likes to stir things up and remind us of how insignificant we are!

 A feathered friend was interested in our car.  We thought we wouldn't be able to see the sunrise due to the cloud cover, but we started to see something interesting in the sky about this point.

 Hello Sun! (just before something weird happened to my camera :( )

 Camera sorted itself out after about 30 seconds.  Was that caused by a solar flare?  Who knows.  More of the sun!

My favourite picture of the morning.

...and then the sun seemed to rise above the clouds and disappeared for a few hours.

Garden Pickings, garden visitors and a sunburnt Hubby

Time is just flying by faster and faster, I tell you!  We've been having some fun here in the garden, and visiting family.  I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas, and a fantastic New Year Celebration!

One 'normal' zucchini and one variegated one that my daughter was very impressed with.

 Purple King Beans fresh from the garden.

 Miss Smokey escaped for 2 mins, and rather than head for the garden and demolishing the carrots, she decided to dig a very deep burrow.  She must have worn herself out digging that hole, because she wasn't as difficult to catch as she normally is! ;D

 

 My solution to keeping the sparrows away from my lettuce, Bok Choy and rocket - a bird cage I rescued in a Council Clean up.  It has certainly come in handy!  I use it on occasions if I need to isolate a bunny for medical treatment.  Thankfully that doesn't happen often.

 A Blue Tongue Lizard ventured into our garden last week.  I hope it sticks around. It is a very welcome sight here!

 The sun about to rise in Port Macquarie.  This was at 5:40am, 4 mins until the sun was scheduled to rise.

 And there's the sun, just peeping behind the clouds.  We could see the remains of Tropical Cyclone Grant, but I'll put that in another post.

 My Parents-In-Law's visitor - a male Bluey looking for their resident female.  He was munching on lettuce my Mother-in-Law was putting in front of him.  He was a really fat, healthy looking lizard who wasn't afraid of us at all.  He probably would have eaten out of our hand.  We wondered if he was the tomato eating culprit.  Two days later we found out that he was :D

A Silly Billy who decided not to take his rash vest to the beach the morning of our departure from Port Macquarie, despite me telling him I would get it for him and it would take 2 minutes "But we're not swimming, we're just going to dig in the sand".  Yeah right, how can you just dig in the sand when you have two children already in their swimmers and sunscreen applied ;D  He has been a very sore and sorry husband since we got back from Port.

Holiday Hideouts #2 Freshwater Point Resort

This place was just lovely!  It is the Freshwater Point Resort Holiday Apartments. I have stayed there before, but with my in-laws.  This time Hubby and I got to be 'grown ups' and stayed there on our own.  In a big bed.  Without having to move the two single beds together.  I loved it!!

 This is where the kids got to sleep.  Notice their sheets not touched?  They decided to sleep on top of the sheets again.  Strange children! (No idea where they get that from).

 The children's bathroom and the built-in laundry complete with washing machine, dryer, sink and cupboard.  Children's bathroom is equipped with toilet, shower and sink with cupboard underneath.  All tiled.  AND a door!

 One side of the room, with a view of the kitchen and dining area.  I don't think I got a picture of the other side of this room.  Shame, because the views of the giant floor to ceiling windows were amazing.

 A King Size big people's bed.  YAAAAAY!  Check out those amazing views!  We were on the 9th floor.  We could see right out to the mountains.  Was awesome with the clouds rolled in.  We had a fairly large wall-mounted tv in our room.

 The view of the bathroom and built-in wardrobes.  All with mirrored doors.  Note the lack of a door on the en suite.  Keep that in mind...

 A view of the shower and toilet in our en suite.

 Hello!  So I totally should have taken a photo of me pretending to sit on the toilet.  You can see the bed from the toilet via all the mirrors in the place.  Which means you can also see the toilet from the bed. Hmmm...not so attractive, but hey!  My husband has seen me give birth twice.  Nothing to hide here.  We did discover that the trick was to keep the end door of the mirrored cupboard open.  Problem generally solved.  There was the children's bathroom with the door if required.

A nice big, deep bath to relax in.  Which I did.  With the roller blind down thank you very much!  Hubby decided to have a bath in it with the blind open.  Not for my amusement, but to watch tv.  Of course!!

The well equipped and very functional kitchen.  Oh how I loved this kitchen.  It was modern, clean and looks a little cluttered with all my gear on it ready to head back to the car.  This was taken on the last day just before we left.  I wanted to remember this kitchen!

I love that this apartment made me feel like I was in a home away from home.  I usually get homesick being away from my home for any length of time, but I didn't here.  You have to keep it clean yourself - you get charged extra if you leave the place dirty so we left it cleaner than it was when we arrived.  So they'll have me back again!

Holiday Hideouts #1 Ballina Island Motor Inn

Recently returned from a trip to the Gold Coast, bringing the lovely sunshine down with us.  We stayed in Ballina on the way up at a lovely place called the Ballina Island Motor Inn.  Here are some of the pictures I took.  I was meaning to race in armed with my camera and take some photos before we brought in all our junk, but that didn't happen.  Apparently the kids wanted to go swimming first, so that took priority.

 We had a spa bath in the bathroom.  After being advised that there was a spa bath in the place we would be staying next in, I decided after everyone else had jumped in, that I would wait until our next destination.  Needless to say, there was NOT a spa bath at our next accommodation.  Note to self: Jump in at every opportunity!

 My 'serious' photo taking face!  This was of the mini bar.  Fridge below, bathroom sink and cupboards to the right and the front door, bathroom entry directly behind me and cupboard opposite the sink.  I thought it odd that they would have a sink outside the bathroom, but it worked.  It's not like we were having to cook there!

 The sink view.  They didn't hand out small bottles of shampoo or conditioner.  They had dispensable wall mounted containers.  I thought that was a great idea.

 One happy child with a bed to himself.  Next to a power point that didn't work.  Very handy when he wanted to plug in his DVD player at night ;D  Meant we all got some sleep instead!

Another child looking rather content.  My children are odd.  Neither of them wanted to actually get under the covers.  They continued this the entire holiday.  Wierd, I tell you!

 Another corner of the room.  Nice and cosy

Someone found another tv in our bedroom and was exhausted from all the driving.  I'll leave him be.  I especially loved the fact that in this Motel, the switch to turn the tv off was on my side of the bed (stage left). No getting up to have to turn everything off.  Always a bonus when you're drop dead tired.

Is this somewhere I would stay again?  Definitely!!!

Penrith Valley Oranges - orange picking

In 2009 we went orange picking at the "pick your own" orchard at Penrith Valley Oranges. It was a fantastic experience for my children to see what is involved in growing and picking fruit. In the shed at Penrith Valley Oranges is a conveyor belt where the oranges are sorted and waxed. One of the owners, Lauren Hartog, showed us how the oranges are sorted into size, given a light coating of wax to make them look shiny but to keep them fresher for longer, and how they are boxed ready to be sold.

They were Naval oranges, and I have to say, I'm not a big orange fan usually but they were the sweetest tasting oranges I have ever had!

Someone looking pleased with the size and look of the fruit!

At Penrith Valley Oranges, you pay for what you pick. We picked a couple of bags of fruit and purchased a few boxes from the shed as well. My kids didn't always end up picking overly ripe fruit, but it was a great lesson for them, and we paid for absolutely everything we picked.

Unfortunately, due to bats and other costs, Penrith Valley Oranges were unable to open for picking to the public last year. I hope they have a better year this year because I'd really love to go with my family again. October is the best month for oranges where I am.

Enjoying the little things in life

I don't teach during the Christmas holidays, and I find it really hard to switch off. This time I made a conscious effort to rest and enjoy the things happening around me.

I am fortunate to have a husband who doesn't expect a 'Stepford Wife'. If the house isn't spick and span when he comes home, so be it. That's not to say I don't clean during the day. I just don't do as much when the kids are home all the time - it is kind of pointless.

Instead, I take the opportunity to look at all the little things around me and appreciate them. Before we realised just how much rainfall would hit Qld and Vic, and when the rain first started to fall a week before Christmas, we saw the rainbow in the top picture of this post. It truly was spectacular and the photo just doesn't do it justice. If you look closely, you can make out the perfect double over the top but it started to rain heavily and I couldn't keep my camera out in the downpour. This rainbow appeared only a few weeks ago, a couple of days prior to hearing about the Qld flood devastation. Mother Nature can be terribly powerful and destructive, but she also shows us her tremendous beauty.

My heart goes out to those affected by the floods in Qld, Northern NSW and VIC. I hope you can find the peace, comfort, strength and support you need in this difficult time, and in the years to follow.

A great food day trip

We were going to head to Bilpin yesterday and do some fruit picking, but I had limited cash, it was going to cost far too much in petrol, and it was going to take an hour and a half to get there, and the same back. We weren't sure if the fruit was going to be great once we got there.

To cut a long story short, we decided to head Dural way and track down some road side stalls and see what we could find.

I had $100 in cash, $20 of which went to Darling Hubby for petrol. We ended up spending under $60 on fruit and veggies, and I have just over $20 left over. Because it was a shorter drive, we didn't have to buy lunch either :D

This is what you get for $60:-

(Watermelon, navel oranges, strawberries, lemons, corn, white nectarines, plums, mango butter, roma tomatoes, peaches, 2 boxes of mangoes - yes TWO! and a cucumber)

You can probably get more for your dollar at the market, but the markets aren't as picturesque as a drive to Rural Dural.

Feel like taking the kids fruit picking?

Last year I got the desire to go fruit picking, to show the kids that fruit doesn't come purely off a supermarket shelf - there is a little more work involved than that.

I got the okay from hubby (he was the one who had to do all the driving, so that was only fair), did some research and settled on Pinecrest Orchard in Bilpin. It's a lovely drive there, long for the kids, but lots to see out the windows.

Did we enjoy it? Why yes we did! The kids loved every minute of it, especially being able to choose and pick their own apples. We did end up with a few unripe ones, but as my kids picked them, I was going to pay for them! After the kids took a few bites they realised why we were telling them to pick ripe ones (tee hee).

Here's a little about what Pinecrest Orchard has to say :-

"We have had a great crop of apples and stone fruit but all the fruit is finished for this season with winter fast approaching. Thankyou to all of our customers for supporting us during this season which for us has been one of the best for years. The young pink lady trees started to produce this year and we had enough of most varieties except Fuji which also suffered from the wet February causing a lot of splitting.

From boxing day (Dec.26) 2009 it all starts again with peaches to pick followed by the plums and apples from mid January.

We plan DV to be open Friday to Sunday through to the end of April 2010. . There is no entry charge. Just pay for what you pick. Toilets and picnic facilities available .

WE ARE SITUATED AT 2549 BELL'S LINE OF ROAD, RIGHT BEHIND BILPIN SCHOOL 30KMS WEST OF RICHMOND, NSW, AUSTRALIA.

Enjoy a day out with your family picking your own fruit, strolling through the fruit trees and appreciating the adjoining Australian bush. If you plan to come in a big group we suggest you ring first so we can plan to maximise your enjoyment. Click on "NEWS" for the latest info.

We also sell homemade Jams including Apricot, nectarine and traditional Plum Jam. The Shed also stocks local honey and nuts (when in season)."

I can't remember exactly how much a kilo their fruit is, but I know it was still cheaper than at the Supermarket. They have buckets there for you to fill and are happy to show you around, how to pick the fruit, what to look for, and any other questions you may have.

We missed the peaches last time, so I'm keeping my eye out ;D