So, this week we arrived in Australia where some things are so familiar and other things far from it. For a start they have the good sense to drive on the correct side of the road, which was useful because driving was something we were going to do a lot of. We were visiting Lottie, who we haven’t seen since before Covid and who lives near Sydney. “Near” has a different meaning in Australia and after picking up the hire care we drove the equivalent of going from Lymington to Newcastle to get to Tuross Head where she now lives. I know we have used the word spectacular quite a lot on this trip but Tuross Head is a place to match anywhere we have been so far. It’s a headland in New South Wales bounded on one side by a salt water lake and the other by an inlet which opens out to the sea, with crystal clear waters and white sand beaches.

Once again we had a booked an Airbnb which by coincidence was 300m from where Lottie lives. It was a simple bungalow with a large decked area and once Stuart had thoroughly searched the place for spiders, snakes and other nasties that he seemed increasingly concerned about we started unpacking. No sooner had we started this than Fran manically starts shouting about something she has seen in the neighbour’s garden. There just sitting out of the sun without a care in the world were three kangaroos. Now, over here they are very common but as Poms to see them in a urban setting was incredible. What surprised us the most was their size, with some being as tall as 2m they could be quite intimidating if you came across them on your afternoon stroll. Having come from Tahiti with its lack of mammals and birds, Australia was a bit of a shock. The birdlife is so abundant, so exotic and the birdcall so loud it’s hard to believe you’re not in a zoo. Now where we live in the Forest is full of birdsong, with the constant twitter of the tits and robins always present but these birds sound like they want to kick your head in. The parrots and kookaburra are beautiful birds but they aren’t going to win the avian version of X-Factor.

The first night Lottie took us to the One Tre Inn to meet some of the locals, which was an interesting experience. It’s hard to explain what confronted us but imagine a wedding held at a social club at 11pm with everyone having been on it since the best man’s speech and that’s what this place was like at 5:30pm, needless to say we blended in quite well. Talking to one of the elder locals, its hard to imagine we are even speaking the same language sometimes. They really like their beer here!!

Lottie has a dog walking business, so we have spent most of the time walking the beaches with her and her dogs. The beaches are wide and long with pristine white sand that squeaks as you walk across it…..and totally devoid of other human life. With only 25million people and being 32 times larger than the UK, there’s a lot of space here. Despite the sharks (the proper jaws kind) and jellyfish, we have endeavored to go into the sea but the water is cold being as they are not yet into the summer. The marine life is as abundant as that on the land and this was no more apparent than when we took a trip to Narooma. Just walking along the shoreline path we saw metre wide stingrays and particularly playful seals just metres from us.

Stuart is on another “I’m getting fit again” reboot. So this Saturday he travelled to the nearest Parkrun (1hr away) to battle with the locals and couldn’t wait for the obligatory “have we go any Parkrun tourists today?”, upsetting the guy from Kenya who really thought he’d travelled the furthest to get here and then also by crossing the line ahead of him. We’ve both done a lot of different Parkrun events but this really did take the prize for the most beautiful setting.