Mini-break...

We are heading home today after a beautiful few days on the coast. My Aunty and Uncle have owned a property in Aireys Inlet for many many years. In fact, Paul built his first house here when he was 19. He is now 54. The first house burnt to the ground in the Ash Wednesday fires. He was insured and re-built (the wonders of being a builder). In 1999 he and my Aunty decided to move the existing house on to one half of the block, sell it, and build on the other half. The house they built then is the house I'm sitting in  now! It was built to accommodate 12 people comfortably but is not huge and feels really homely and special with hard wood floors and a beautiful open plan kitchen/living area.

I first came here when I was 11 years old, and have enjoyed many summers, winters, and in-betweens over the 15 years. Now Molly gets to enjoy the ritual too.

There is a family of king parrots (all the males are named Paulie and the females Pauline) that visit daily and sit on your knee if you have some seed to offer. There are also bully Cockatoos who scare away the Paulie/ines.. We don't like them.. Molly asks for us to shoo them away as she is really frightened of them. They are pretty awful compared to the beautiful king parrots.

The surf beaches are amazing (albeit scarily powerful) but we like the inlet as it is calm and clean after high tide each day and there is a huge river-like passage of water with shallows that Molly loves playing in and deeper channels where it is possible to swim. On Monday went for a walk there and, since it was cool and overcast, did not pack swimming stuff but once there the draw of the water was irresistible and Molly stripped off and did a nudie run. I wish I felt comfortable doing the same but alas, the beach is not as secluded as I would need it to be able to feel I could do that. We went back yesterday with swimming gear and I had a very relaxing swim/float in the inlet. Totally gorgeous.

We are now waiting for my uncle to wake up and cook us BBQ bacon & eggs brunch..

Packing up to go home after that.. very sad..