Wednesday 16^th February

Happy birthday Eva Thomas – 4 years old today!  And having slap-up fish & chips at Mures to celebrate.  Nothing better than fish & chips and strawberry sorbet!

And happy birthday to her Uncle Michael, 31 today and preparing to party up bigtime in Townsville tomorrow night.

We are moored near a beautiful little beach in Broken Bay – Little Patonga.  It promised a free mooring but…the only mooring here is bright red and white and says, in big bold letters, PRIVATE MOORING.  There is also a PRIVATE JETTY.  Oh how we long for Lake Macquarie!  It is not far from getting dark so we have tied up to the mooring, hoping a big red and white boat doesn’t roar up, angrily, to reclaim its lovely big heavy mooring in the middle of the night…

We spent the morning in Wangi Wangi, on another blessedly free big solid jetty.  A nice peaceful little town, with a bike track along the waters edge.  We rode past The Dobell House and came to an abrupt halt – how lovely, maybe we could have a tour?  But no…it is only open at the weekends.  The house is where Sir William Dobell did most of his paintings, from 1920-1970, if I read correctly.

There were a couple of old codgers (by old codgers I mean they were about our age…) ambling around a shabby looking houseboat on the jetty, which is right outside – you guessed it – the RSL Club.  (Many of these jetties, free and delightful, are in close proximity to gambling clubs…ulterior motive…)  Pete looked at them darkly and said, “We had better lock the boat when we go for our ride.  Those two look as if they are not long out of prison, and will probably be back there soon.  Recidivists if ever I saw recidivists!”  I disagreed.  “Nope.  They are drinkers, and their wives have kicked them out, so they have to live on this houseboat.”  Well a bit later, when the club opened, there they were, installed at a table under the trees, settling in for a long drinking session.  So…maybe we were both right…

We were a bit sad to leave peaceful Lake Macquarie.  We were farewelled not by a sea eagle but by a pair of wedgetails, wheeling about overhead.   A flock of pelicans on the shore were behaving in a very unseemly manner, scrambling around a man cleaning some fish and throwing out the odd scrap – did they think they were tiny graceful seagulls, for goodness sake??

We went under the Swansea Bridge at 12.00 again, once more very happily holding up traffic on the Pacific Highway for a good three minutes.  It was a beautiful day, about 30 degrees, with a gentle bit of wind, and we cruised past Lion Rock at about 5.00, right on schedule to get into Broken Bay.  Not far from Sydney now…

At about 3pm Pete was reading on the couch while I sat at the helm.  Up ahead I could see churning water – what could this be??  A mini maelstrom??  Danger??  But no…it was a huge school of dolphins, great big pale grey ones, churning up the water as they dashed towards the shore.  Pete came out to admire them, and they wheeled around and came back towards the boat.  About ten of them swam along in the bow wave, leaping out occasionally to cover themselves with their own personal rainbows.  Just glorious!

I know I often witter on about my difficulties finding postcards.  I do this because I try to send my seven-soon-to-be-eight grandchildren a card each every week.  I got a text from Katy, mother of birthday girl Eva, this morning.  Apparently Eva was “reading” my latest postcard to her little sister, who I hope was very impressed.  Now my postcards to the children are very boring.  I usually write, “Hello, we are sailing, I went swimming, we saw some dolphins, it is hot/cold/raining, love Bardy.”  But not on this occasion…According to Eva, I wrote:

I will send you and your family postcards for the rest of your life and if you like chocolate then I will give you that too and it will make your heart beat so fast because you will love it so much.

I wrote back, That is SO funny, and Katy replied:

Yes it got even better.  Your heart burst at one point and evidently you have lots of amazing activities planned for the whole family.  She ended with, “Well that is VERY kind of Bardy!”

Oh my goodness how can I ever live up to that??  I had better have some chocolate frogs in my pocket on my return to Hobart!!!

(It is actaully Thursday 17th am..no reception in Little Patonga Bay...)