Saturday, December 5, 2009

We found the south coast

There's quite a lot of it, and it is not as far away as you think. Unless you live in Adelaide, Perth, Melbourne, any parts of Queensland (south or north) or Abu Dhabi. Or any other state, territory or continent other than the ACT and parts of NSW. It's very close to the heart of the nation, though. You can drive back without stopping and your legs will only feel very slightly stiff. It takes about the same time as catching the bus to work and back, plus a bit of prevaricating about the bush.

When you drive there from Canberra you go out of the ACT into NSW and then the ACT bulges out a bit and you go through it again. Tricksy.

It is not a good idea to give your child a pie and a smoothie for lunch in Braidwood before descending the range, unless you are missing the 'vomit on Mummy' experience and wish to relive it. Pie and smoothie is much nastier than breast milk and smoodged up sweet potato. Did make it out of the car though, so all respect and gratitude to the Noodle. Humans are much easier to wash than upholstery (this is my best parenting tip). You can get the smell out of humans really, really easily just with soap and water and you don't need any tips from books published by the ABC.

The southerly wind that blows onto the south coast is really, really strong. And makes big waves. Which are not fun for the paddlers and sandcastle users of the beach. The gentle northerly, however, is a champion breeze for both paddling and sandcastle making. The water is nearly warm enough to swim in (which is a sign that we are metamorphing into Canberries, not Queenslanders).

There are many shells at the bottom of the cliff at Mossy Point. Likewise seaweed.

Tides are quite the interesting thing to watch when you have spent many recent years inland.

Moruya is a Very Nice Town. It should have some kind of niceness award. The General Store (which is not in the main street) does a very respectable breakfast and sells a wide variety of colourful lollies. I am less convinced of the charms of Mogo, but there's a good second-hand bookshop there and also it is called Mogo which is kind of fun to say. There's a road nearby called Bimbimbie Drive which is also fun to say and goes to the tune of Mr Plow very well.

Sea is salty. Sand is grainy. Noodle is happy.

4 comments:

Roger said...

South? It looks East to me.
Did I miss something subtle?
Shayne has a sister in Bermagui, not much further south than you mention. Never been there myself though.

Penthe said...

It's south of Sydney. Very, very Sydney-centric attitudes they have around here. When everyone sane knows that Melbourne is the centre of the universe, naturally. ;-)

mimbles said...

Sounds like you had a lufferly time :-)

I'm quite fascinated by tides even though I've been in easy reach of them all my life.

Ampersand Duck said...

Yairs, there's the South Coast and the Far South Coast, which is, IMHO, a bit nicer than just South because it's too far for people to reach easily from Sydney or Melbourne.

Congratulations upon your major discovery. We wish you many more happy paddlings...