Back to the Water Wednesday 2/20/08

This is going to be a less than exciting day. We clean up a few leftover bars and crackers for breakfast, check out of our hotel and run a few errands around town. That includes sitting in a basement full of computers with a particularly unusual odor and a number of pierced and tattooed gamers listening to rap music while we catch up on blogs and bookkeeping. We would still rather do this than pay the thieves at the hotel 55 cents a minute. Won’t do it. And we may have made some new friends.

It is late morning by the time we get back in the car and get a couple of hours behind us before stopping in Braidwood for a picnic of leftover pizza and pate with crackers. Braidwood is another little farm town and all these small spots have a very leafy town park with picnic area, barbecues and rest rooms, and this one even has a pool. There is a true Aussie character using the Bar-b who offers us a Toohey (beer) in exchange for a little salt. We don’t have any salt but he offers the Toohey anyway. He is driving an old Ford diesel Bronco and says he likes to spend a couple months camping in the hills and then stops here for one night in the hotel to get cleaned up before going home. Tonight must be the night.

When we get back to the coast we take a little walk-about break in Ulladulla because we like the name and it has a nice harbor. It is a short drive from there to Hyam’s Beach on Jervis Bay, our stop for the night, and we wind around a bunch of little resort towns on our way from the main road. We have a little cabin that is one of seven converted "whaler cottages" across the road from the beach. There is a little creek running past our small balcony and we are set back into the trees. We head down to the beach and we understand the claim that this bay has the whitest sand beaches in Oz. It is a nice sunny late afternoon for a stroll with toes in the water and a few other folks wandering about. When we get back to our cottage we meet new friends. We see a collection of what we believe are Rosellas (Holly?) in the trees and a couple land on the lawn not far away. We are very excited about seeing these wild parrots with spectacular shades of red, orange, green, blue and yellow and we start zooming our camera to get some shots. Now they are on the railing of the balcony next to us and we get more excited with more snapping. Now they are on our railing and sticking their beaks in front of the camera for close ups. Mary gets them a cracker and they are interested but decide that it is flavorless and move along. Not only are they pretty, but they have good taste.

We drive through our two closest little towns looking for something tempting for dinner and the best we can do is "3 Gringos" for Mexican. This is a dodgy proposition but the fajitas are pretty good, although a far cry from Boca Chica in St. Paul or anywhere in Texas or California. They don't have a liquor license so John went next door to the bottle shop for a six pack which is another interesting feature of Aussie restaurants. Some do BYO wine and others are BYO anything, and a number of folks have their coolers with them. It's dark for the drive home but we don't see any 'Roos along the road. Maybe tomorrow.

Today's local headline: Hospitals falling apart Sydney Morning Herald (Administrators of Sydneys largest hospitals have resigned claiming "chaos.")