And relax...

With only two full days of our month long Hong Kong and Oz odyssey left to enjoy, we decided to take things easy, relax, laze, chill and make the most of the truly wonderful weather before returning the leaden skies and frigid drizzle of Blighty.

The grandest plan we had for the day was to head back up to Palm Beach and hire a boat (we'd seen a large sign alongside a jetty saying 'Boats For Hire' and had a sneeking suspicion that this might be the place to go), but when we got up there the salty sea-dog boat-hiring-fella regretted to inform us that he was boooked out for the day, so that was the end of that.

Instead, we bought some sarnies from a little waterside caff, then set up our deckchairs facing Pittwater to munch on them pensively whilst watching the seaplanes come and go. I mentioned the seaplanes in my post yesterday and, for those who've never seen one before, they're a wonderfully novel spectacle, very much redolent of 1930's 'noirish' thrillers. Once the planes land they plough their way over the water to tie up at the jetty; when the doors open you almost expect men in trilbies and sharp suits accompanied by women wearing even sharper suits and brandishing cigarette holders to step out.

They seem to come in and out every half hour or so, and watching them take off is great. Firstly, they plod out into the centre of Pittwater to get a decent run up. Then they slam the throttles on full, seemingly oblivious to the small sailing-dinghies and waterskiers in their path, and charge over the water towards the headland, finally taking to the air and ascending fast to avoid the lighthouse (but only just, by me reckoning). I like seaplanes; it's official. Everytime one came into land I delighted Mrs V (or, at least, I like to think I did) by shouting "The plane, boss, the plane!", although even I have to admit to tiring of it after a few hours.

Mrs V took Tizer off to do a little beachcombing and I settled back with a beer and my book - which has been barely touched this holiday due to our pretty frantic schedule. And for an hour, nothing disturbed me but a couple of seaplanes and a handful of rather persistent ants that insisted on biting at my feet, a hardship which I felt - under the circumstances, I could more-or-less live with.

The rest of the afternoon was spent being generally idle, so it only makes sense that by the time we got back to the house we were, of course, absolutely knackered (ain't it always the way?). We'd been on the go, pretty frenetically, for the best part of four weeks now, and I think this was the night where it all caught up with us. So, what else could we do but put Tizer to bed (she was out for the count too), order a curry from the place in Avalon, crack open a few beers and veg out on the sofa in front of a DVD.

Curry - average, but nice and spicy; beer - ice cold and Australian; DVD - 'Finding Nemo', which you can't really beat if you need to turn your brain off for a while. Actually, we've seen it a few times before, but we were struck on this occasion by the dentist's neice - the one for whom Nemo is intended as a gift - and her "Wake up little fishy!! Why won't you wake up?!" line. It reminded us of a certain, little someone in our life, but we couldn't quite recall who... If you haven't seen the film, do so soon. You'll like it.

"You know we belong together...

... you and I for ever and ever. No matter where you are, you're my guiding star". The lonely, the sad and the displaced amongst you will, no doubt, recognise the opening lines to the soap-opera behemoth that is 'Home and Away', the setting for which we found ourselves in today.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Palm Beach - the uber-affluent little town at the end of the Barrenjoey Peninsula where we dined on fish and mojitos on Christmas Eve - doubles as the fictional Summer Bay, home to the strangely popular tale of everyday Aussie folk. This far up the peninsula there's only a couple of hundred yards between the Pacific and Pittwater - a long swathe of golden sand being pounded by the ocean on the one side and a smaller beach facing calm water, yachts and seaplanes on the other. The beaches run parallel then culminate in a great hunk of rock which opens up like a hammer-head, about a quarter of a mile wide and a couple of hundred feet high, with a splendid 19th century lighthouse on top. And it was to this lighthouse that we were to venture today.

So, after an early lunch at a smashing street cafe in Avalon, we drove up to Palm Beach. The guidebook instructed us to park at the beach car park, about half a mile from the headland, and to prepare ourselves for a "400 meter beach walk, followed by a 600 meter hard climb". Hard climb, you say? In 80 degree heat, you say? Oh joy. Actually, it wasn't too bad, and it was slightly overcast which helped to keep the worse of the heat at bay. They were right about the hard climb though, and it was all the worse for Mrs V who elected to have Tizer on her back in the funky little 'toddler sling' we bought just for such an occasion.

It was quite a slow slog over some pretty rough ground and I started to wish that I'd brought some sturdier footwear with me. It was about this time that a teenage girl in flip-flops went striding past me (but not before casting me a worried kind of look the likes of which I'm pretty sure paramedics are trained not to use when dealing with patients suffering heart attacks) so I re-doubled my efforts, managing to stay a few steps behind her in an attempt to show what a fine state of health I was really in.

Finally reaching the top I quietly congratulated myself at being able to keep up with a skinny girl in flip-flops and awaited the rest of my little family, who had managed to lag behind somewhat. It wasn't long before Mrs V hove into view around the last bend in the path with Tizer clinging to her back like a shaved baby gorilla. I couldn't work out whether the look on my darling wife's face was that of grim determination to reach the top, pride at my ability to scale the headland so quickly or - possibly - something else. Hard to say really.

We all sank a considerable amount of luke-warm Evian in an attempt to re-hydrate then walked the last bit of track to the lighthouse and some wonderful panoramic views of the ocean, mainland New South Wales and the peninsula behind us. From this vantage point it felt more like being on an island than anything else, almost surround by water as we were. There was a refreshing and much appreciated breeze whipping around the top of the headland, so we lingered for a while to make the most of the view and recover our strength a bit.

The walk back down was hard on the knees, but was much less strenuous than the ascent. It was also great fun to pass red-faced tubs-of-lard on their way up, sweating, panting and asking desperately, "Are we far from the top?".

"Ooh, you've got quite a way to go - you're not even half way yet" I replied, with sadistic relish.

We were soon back at sea level again and, with understandable relief, Mrs V released Tizer from the sling so that she could toddle along the beach by herself. Time was against us - we actually had a babysitter booked so that Mrs V and I could go out for a meal together - but we still hadn't been on 'Summer Bay' beach, so we scooted over to the Pacific side of the peninsula for a stroll down the sand. It's a gorgeous beach, you can see why they like to put it on the telly five nights a week.

Tizer went for a paddle, but clearly wasn't aware that the 'surf was up' and got a drenching, the poor mite. Still, unlike Queensland, there are no box jellyfish in the sea around Sydney, so the worse she got was wet, rather than - well - dead.

Back at the car, there was a slightly unpleasant scene to be endured as we de-sanded a wet two year old who'd just half-walked, half-crawled across 400 yards of beach, but once she'd been stripped to her nappy and hosed down from a standpipe in the car park she quielty settled into her seat for the relatively short drive back to Avalon.

Our babysitter for the evening was Monica, who hails from Chile, and is an absolute delight. Tizer has been fortunate enough, over the past couple of years, to travel quite extensively and has had baby sitters from London to San Francisco and Las Vegas to Barbados, not to mention the spots we've already visited in Hong Kong and Oz so far on this trip, so she's pretty much used to the whole, varied experience. But Monica is head and shoulders above the rest and Tizer took to her instantly. She has a grown up daughter of her own and is much more the 'motherly' type than some other sitters we've had, and once she'd settled down with Tizer to read a bedtime book, our dear daughter barely lifted her head to say 'goodbye' as Mrs V and I headed into town.

We'd booked a table at a tapas restaurant in Avalon and, it must be said, this place was really quite a find. During the day Avalon is very much a streetside Cafe Society kind of town, with a slightly limited selection of places to dine out on an evening short of an Italian, a curry restaurant and - our choice this evening - The Different Drummer, all but hidden away above the shops on the old Barrenjoey Road. Everything was spot-on, from a smashing mojito at the quirky bar, to the wonderful service from the barman, our waitress and Charley, the thoroughly pleasant manager of the joint. And the food is top notch too, a really nice selection of well-cooked, tasty tapasy things: deep fried risotto balls, marinated lamb, spicy beef skewers and some particularly good patatas bravas. And we had a great bottle (or two?) of Rioja to go with it too.

The only downside was the flying cockroach that tried to get itself entangled in Mrs V's hair part way through the meal. I'm sure by now, dear reader, you're already aware of her absolute fear and loathing of these creatures, so I won't go into too many details of her reaction other than to say, it wasn't great. Charley the manager came over to apologise profusely, but we explained there really was no need; if you sit on a first floor balcony, in Australia, in the middle of summer, these things will happen from time-to-time. It really wasn't a reflection on the restaurant.

As Oz has the same (if not stricter) laws banning smoking indoors, we excused ourselves after finishing our tapas to go outside for a filthy ciggy. Charley looked around the - by now - mostly empty restaurant (which was understandable, it was pretty late on a mid-week night - either that or Mrs V's acrobatic display with the roach had scared 'em off). He told us to sit back down and brought us over an ash tray. What a nice fella. I know smoking is a dirty, smelly, unhealthy habit and I'm not promoting it in any way, I'm just pointing out that it was a nice touch on Charley's behalf and finished a wonderful evening off very nicely.

We returned to the house to find Monica watching a Spanish channel on TV (which makes sense - she is Chilean) and a peacefully sleeping Tizer in her room. Monica had had a lovely time with her, apparently, and was more than happy for us to re-book her for Saturday - our last night in Oz. We thanked her and sent her on her way then - mercifully - took to our bed rather than put me through the humiliation of another game of pool, thank god.

This morning Tizer got up and came into our room, as she often does, and we heard her singing one of her favourite ditties, 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'. But there was something wrong - the words (such as she knows them) didn't sound right. Then Mrs V spotted it: "She's singing it in Spanish," she gasped. Clever girl, our Monica...

Boxing Day Beach Bums

Well, Christmas Day may not have brought is the blistering sunshine we'd hoped for, but today certainly made up for it. As the tabloids like to say when the temperature in Britain tops 80 degrees for more than two days in a row - 'Phew, What A Scorcher!' We were, perhaps, a little fuzzy-headed from the gluttony and alcohol abuse of the previous day, but were raring to go once we'd glanced outside at a blue and cloudless sky and realised that this was, most resolutely, beach weather!

So, we loaded towels, deck chairs (pilfered from the veranda), buckets, spades, a gallon of suncream and a handful of beers into the car and head off to find a nice beach somewhere (we're on a peninsula, remember, so you're never too far from the sea). But first we needed a picnic; it being Boxing Day we really should have been ramming the picked-over leftovers of the previous day's turkey between two slices of bread, but we'd gone traditional yesterday and needed something a little different today. We opted, instead, for a trip into Avalon where we bought some quiche, pastries, fruit and smoothies. Then we headed off in search of a beach.

We carried on along Avalon main street, which climbs up and over the spine of the peninsula, winding it's way up the wooded hillside past some pretty pricey looking real estate. Then, over the crest of the hill you're presented with stunning views of Pittwater (the calm, non-ocean side), dotted with yachts and motor boats and water-skiers. Driving down towards the water we found a beach-side car park at a place called Clareville, which looked pretty much what we were after. A long crescent of golden sand backed by a wide stretch of grass which seperated some even more expensive looking houses from the beach. It was pretty busy but we found ourselves a decent spot, set up our deck chairs and presented Tizer with her bucket and spade.

The vast majority of folk sharing the beach with us appeared to be local familes, and there was a really pleasant, sunny, 'British Bank Holiday' vibe to the place. I say 'British Bank Holiday' vibe - of course said vibe is based purely on distant, childhood memories of '70s beach holidays: the sun shining high in the sky, we'd play cricket on the beach, eat sandwiches with real sand in them (we didn't mind) and lap at fast-melting ice-cream cones with strawberry sauce and hundrends-and-thousands on top. Then we'd load ourselves into the car and drive home along free-flowing open roads, ultimately falling asleep on the back seat. If we were lucky, the next thing we'd know would be waking in our bed the following morning, our father having carried us in from the car without ever disturbing our slumber.

The cruel reality of Bank Holidays nowadays is, of course, starkly different where - on the off chance that it isn't sleeting - a trip to the beach involves dodging crowds of teenagers smashed on White Lightning, avoiding used condoms left partially buried in the sand and eating mystery meat products from condemnable fast-food stalls before spending the following three days stuck in a traffic jam, choking on the fumes of thousands of slowly overheating people carriers.

Thankfully, Clareville Beach was very much the model of my childhood holidays circa 1977. Children paddling in the sea, grandads snoozing on deck-chairs, picnics being picked at, sandcastles being built (then flattened). There was a compelling game of cricket in the offing which was steadily proving rather enthralling to watch. A family group of 12 or so were playing in the 'no team' tradtion of beach cricket whereby once the batsman's out he immediately becomes a fielder and one of the other fielders goes into bat in his place. One dad was acting as both captain and umpire, organising his fielders, deciding who came into bat next and passing final judgement on some pretty athletic appeals of 'Owzat?!?'. Sorry to go on, but it would never happen like this in England. We'd 'muck about', or cheat, or argue, or just get too damned drunk to play properly. This was proof postive that the Aussies take their cricket seriously and end up having a much better time for it. It probably also goes to explain why us Brits are so crap at sport by comparison.

I happily munched on my quiche, sipped my ice-cold beer, and thoroughly enjoyed the game. Some of them were very good, especially the younger lads - I swear I spotted a googly being bowled at one point. Mrs V and Tizer went for a paddle and left me in my deck-chair to soak up the sun, watch the cricket and generally wonder why everything is shit in Britain.

As the afternoon wore on the locals started to wander back to the beach houses behind us and spark up their barbecues, so we decided to pack up, head back to Avalon and do the same. Trekking back up the beach towards the car park, a deck-chair under each arm, the tightness of the day's sun, sand and sea on my forehead and the back of my neck, it struck me how much the whole experience took me back to the beach holidays we had in Cornwall when I was a kid. How come they can still maintain this care-free, family oriented lifestyle in Australia, whilst back home we're blighted with tracksuited, foul-mouthed chavs, cut-price Stella in plastic glasses, stereos pumping out distorted bass from the open windows of a pimped-up cars and an all pervading sense that something might 'kick-off' at any moment? It's all rather depressing when you think about it. So let's move on.

Back at the Beach Retreat, we showered, cracked open a bottle of white, swept up the day's cockroach carcasses and whacked some tucker on the barbie. Fair dinkum, if I didn't feel like a real Aussie! We flamed the steaks we'd picked up from the butchers in Avalon on Christmas Eve, along with a nice bit of pork and some corn. Mrs V - aware of her mysterious appeal to mosquitos - didn't want to eat outside, which seemed a shame, but we still had a slap-up meat-fest indoors with yet another outstanding bottle of local Shiraz. The evening was only really marred after Tizer was put to bed and I managed, once more, to play pool like a one-armed monkey, with Mrs V beating me back-to-back at another four or five games.

A splendid day, the likes of which you don't get all that many of in life. Tomorrow, we're going to visit a lighthouse and hangout with the guys from the Surf Club at Summer Bay.

'Twas The Night Before Chirstmas...

...and all through the house, nothing much was moving, mainly due to the large quantities of industrial strength bug spray that we've used liberally both inside and out earlier this afternoon.

Four cans of the stuff we've gone through, and it's mighty powerful. The indoor spray is to be used around the edges of walls, windows and doors and certainly has a pretty impressive effect on the cockroaches. Out they shoot from whichever nook or cranny they're hiding in, desperate to get away from the relentless campaign of gassing. Little do they know that it's already too late, and they seldom get more than two or three yards before they feel honour-bound to flip themselves onto their back and die slow, agonising and wiggly-legged deaths. Serves 'em right, little bastards.

They've been driving Mrs V to distraction, and whilst we spent most of the day out-and-about, her mood has suggested that the roaches have never been far from her mind. The outdoor spray - which I was in charge of, being the man of the house - is sprayed in a perimeter around the property. A proverbial line in the sand, so the instructions on the tin suggest, that will ne'er be crossed by any creepy-crawly - unless it's a particularly suicidal one. And it really seems to work too. A bug came tootling across my 'ring of steel' (as I'm now calling it), made it about a foot over, then quietly pitched over on it's back and died. Result.

You also need to spray around doors, windows and under window sills. This is fun. One sweep of the spray beneath the sill and all manner of wildlife falls out; roaches, beetles and some pretty sinister looking spiders (having referred back to our landlord's copy of 'The Ladybird Book of Spiders That Can Make You Poorly' I feel I may have taken out one or two funnel-webs, which is scary).

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm very much the animal lover and find the diverse wildlife out here fascinating - but it's just not all that pleasant sharing your 'home' with a bunch of roaches. Perhaps there's a bug spray out there that only targets cockroaches, but if there is, this one ain't it. It decimates entirely, and whilst I feel genuinely bad for the spiders and ladybirds, if it can put a smile on Mrs V's face in time for Chirstmas morning then it's a price worth paying. Sorry.

We went on a shopping trip into town this morning, not just to buy several gallons of industrial strength roach spray, but also to pick up everything for our Chirstmas lunch tomorrow. Months back, when we first started planning this trip, we had pretty grand aspirations of doing the whole 'Christmas-on-the-beach' thing so beloved of ex-pats, but as the big day has got closer - and after speaking to quite a few locals on the subject - most people still seem to opt for turkey with all the trimmings. We've turned our back on most things 'Xmas' this year, so we decided we'd go for it - on the condition that we could actually find a turkey in Australia on Christmas Eve.

Which we did; big bugger of a thing from a cracking family butchers on the main street of Avalon. We also treated ourselves to a couple of steaks the size of toilet seats to chuck on the barbie later in the week. Then onward to a couple of different green grocers (more of those gigantic, fresh veggies) and a rather nice deli. All sorted, we dropped our perishables off, launched an attack on the indigenous wildlife that Chemical Ali would have been proud of, then, having rendered our home-away-from-home uninhabitable for the next few hours, headed on up the peninsula for a drive.

I say peninsula, for that's exactly what it is. The Barrenjoey Peninsula to be precise, with the South Pacific to the east and a calm patch of water called Pittwater to the west. We had our hearts set on a pint or two, but having passed a couple of pubs that actually had queues outside - the likes of which I haven't seen since the opening weekend of 'Star Wars' -  we realised that the Aussies take Christmas Eve way too seriously and decided to carry on driving up to the end of the peninsula, which culminates in a little town called Palm Beach. Otherwise known - to retired widows, students and the terminally unemployed - as Summer Bay, setting of the soap 'Home and Away'.

Unlike it's alternate soap opera persona, Palm Beach is swish, with luxurious looking villas climbing up the wooded hillsides all staring out across the turquoise sea. This is Serious Money territory, appparetly, with the likes of Nicole Kidman et al having holiday homes here. Very beautiful it is too. We happened across a rather attractive bar/restaurant called Barrenjoey House and, remembering the queues coming out of the pubs further down the coast, decided that this was a much better spot to stop for a drink and - perhaps - a bite to eat.

I ordered what turned out to be, quite frankly, an absolutely outstanding mojito, a few sips of which convinced me that we should check out the food to see if it was anywhere near as good. And it was. We all had fish goujons (made out of a fish I've never heard of and can't remember the name of) with chips and home-made tartare sauce. Bloody marvellous it was, so I had another mojito to celebrate. Not a bad way to spend Christmas Eve, when you consider the mayhem of cramming oneself into an overly busy, overheated pub back home.

After dinner we took a wander on the beach, then headed back home to put Tizer to bed, sweep up the cockroach carcasses, open a bottle of wine and play a few games of pool. All terribly civilised.

Right - must be off. Santa is due and, apparently, he knows if you're sleeping and he knows if you're awake. So, I've decided I better be good, for goodness sake. G'night...