Bang a gong we are on! Three points if you can tell me where that quote is from. Got to Wollongong after a two and half hour drive that skirted Sydney’s western suburbs. We have already finished our talking book – ‘A Wrinkle In Time’ that cousin Siobhan shared with us. Thanks for that, we all liked it and it made the trip a little less ’are we there yet’ saturated.

We went for a local drive and saw the obligatory lighthouse and then found a little park by an inlet with a good playground which the kids enjoyed until a nasty thunderstorm came over. The Gong is surrounded by a good old fashioned Aussie escarpment (Q. What’s a spot with no escarpment? A. No spot at all). And the lightning show as the storm came across it was amazing.

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However when we got back to the van the awning was flapping like a pelican caught in a fish and chip shop. I said “she’ll be right” but it didn’t take long to understand that she wouldn’t. Monja and I wrestled the awning in whilst being harangued by strong winds and pelting rain. Not good, scary in fact, but no damage was sustained. Holding on to metal struts is not my favourite thing to do when there’s full on fork lightning about.

There’s a pool and spa here so the kids are thumbs up. There is a beach 60 meters away, beautiful beach, but only one of them saw it for 5 minutes. I always though that the beauty of nature was something that touched us humans deep in our being, maybe it deepends (serendipitous spelling mistake) on how many gigabytes you have left on your plan.

We did a quick trip to the Kiama Blowhole. Who could resist  the misted, bellowing attractions of a blowhole? Certainly not us. Although as I parked the car not six meters away from a small set of steps leading to the said natural wonder, one of the peanut gallery was heard to say “who cares about a silly blowhole” this statement closely followed by “what is a blowhole anyway”. Ah the joys of exploring new landscapes.  Kiama is a postcard perfect little place. So green and deep blue. But what’s the point? I’ve seen green and blue before. Why didn’t we just stay in the van searching for the latest cat videos on youtube and working out ways to get more lollies and ice-cream? Oops sorry I was channelling there for a minute.

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We are starting to feel the Spirit of Tassie ferry trip timeline breathing down our neck so sat down with a $2 calendar, three maps of various sizes and the Wikicamps app and nutted out AND booked every day until we get on the ferry on the night of the 24th Feb. Most driving days are about two and half to three hours and each stop is a two nighter except for the 4 day stay at Melbourne before we board. So we are happy to have a few certainties for a while.

Will I post for each spot? I have a lot (I am talking stacks) of unfinished crosswords so it’ll be a fight between them and posting and hopefully a bit of fishing. You’ll find out which wins soon enough.