Sydney to Jervis Bay

Friday January 13

The drive from Sydney to Melbourne is over 1,000 km, so we're taking our time and breaking it up, spending a week here and a week there on the way down.  The maiden voyage in the Aluminum Falcon is  less than 200 km, to Jervis Bay, just to get a feel for things.  We stop in a pub in the little town of Berry, to have a beer, get the diapers changed, and feed Rusty some yoghurt.  We aren't sure if kids are allowed in the pubs until we spot a 12-year old pouring beers behind the bar.  The pub seems made for families travelling with kids.  There's a change table in the bathroom (a really good one, not just one of those fold-down plastic ones), and just past the pool tables, opening onto the patio, is a fully-enclosed playground.  It has swings, some slides, a couple towers to climb up, and a rope bridge.  The whole thing is fenced in so the only way for a kid to escape is back onto the patio, where the parents sit and chat.  Australia has the road trip worked out.

Clark and Audrey in a pub that makes them both happy

Ellen and Rusty walking the strip at Berry 

Back in the car, we continue down the meandering Princes Highway.  It rolls up and down with the landscape, and regularly swerves over for a view of the sea.  There's also a lot of swerving for roundabouts and for my sudden steering corrections back into the lane.  All of us are feeling a little car sick after a while, but Rusty is the only one actually saying, "Ow".  We pull over and check that her seat belt isn't rubbing her the wrong way and she seems fine.  She's singing and pointing things out.  But as soon as we start back up with the ups and downs and swerving, she vomits.

We pull over to the side of the road and try to clean her up.  Half-digested yoghurt has found its way into all the nooks and crannies, and straps and buckles, of the car seat.  We do what we can, change her clothes, commiserate about the smell, and get back on the road.  We drive off, never seeing the little yellow crocs that she has a mad crush on still sitting in the ditch.

She pukes twice more before we arrive.  We go through all her spare clothes and the smell isn't doing much to help us front-seat people with our own nausea.  As long as we have some music playing though, Rusty is still happy and smiling and when we stop to clean her up, we get to see some really beautiful Australian countryside, like a winery and its gardens.  "She's had too much wine," we explain to some people in the parking lot.

1 hour and 55 minutes seems to be the maximum amount of time that the kids are somewhat content on a road trip.  Jervis Bay takes 2.  As we inch towards our destination both the kids are ready (and loudly letting us know it) to get out and explore.  Tom Tom shows the countdown and I am anxiously yelling it out to Clark.  900m to destination, 800m, 700m, 40 seconds, 30 seconds, 20 seconds (it's amazing how long 10 seconds takes when the kids are on high).  We vow to try to do all of our driving during nap time in the coming months.

Jervis Bay seems like the perfect bay to me.  It's a circular inland sea joined to the ocean by only the smallest of mouths.  The water is see-through aqua and the sand is almost pure white.  It's so perfect that we're pretty sure it must be PhotoShopped.  According to our guide book the sand at Jervis bay wins the Guinness record for whitest sand in the world.  We believe it.

We check out a beach called Chinamen's Beach (which we call Ha Ling Beach because we are culturally sensitive like that).  We walk down a few steps through the forest, and find this:

The bay is quite sheltered so the waves are mellow and it's a great spot to reintroduce Rusty to the ocean.  She needs little coaxing and toddles toward the ocean pointing and saying "water, water".  The water is a bit chilly but she is still game for chasing and trying to catch the waves.  After a couple big waves suck on her toes she runs a safe distance up the beach and is content to just hang out and watch the water.  We build her a little sand wall that the waves can't climb over and she watches Clark go for a swim from the safety of her little fort. 

Rusty decides to try a mouthful of wet sand.  We think after one taste that that will be the end of it.  Not so - she decides to add wet sand to the vast repertoire of foods that she will eat (rice cereal, yogurt, banana, crackers, french fries and wet sand).  After four mouthfuls she decides maybe it's not so great (much to our relief).

In town there are all kinds of tours that will take you out on a cruise to see dolphins.  Or...you can take a morning swim at Ha Ling beach and see dolphins jumping out of the water and doing 360's within 50 meters of you.  That's what we did.  What a show!  Rusty is a little disconcerted about the "Big Fish" so close to Daddy.

'Ha Ling' Beach - Jervis Bay

Time to pack up the kids and head south to Surf Beach.  We don't quite get our fix of Jervis Bay and decide to try to spend a week here on our way back to Brisbane.