Illawarra Boat Charters

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Our boat for the trip

We are off!

Dagan caught two at one time.

Sydney caught a red snapper.

The pelicans are waiting.

Gabbie

Dale

Adam caught the largest fish.

We were up early this morning and headed over to the harbour.  We went fishing with Illawarra Boat Charters.  We went out of Wollongong, and we went reef fishing.  All of us thought the boat we were going on looked like it could have been in the movie Jaws.





                                            Adam started singing a song from one part of the movie.  It made us laugh.  It was cloudy when we boarded the boat, and started raining on our way out to the reef.  It was also pretty wavy.  The captain told us the water was really calm for this area, but the waves made the boat bob all around.  Thankfully, it stopped raining after a while.    We caught fish right away.  The kids had fun reeling the fish in.  The adults found it difficult to tell if a fish was on or not.  It was a different kind of fishing than are used to.  We caught a wide variety of fish: red snapper, flathead, morwang, sergeant baker fish, leatherjack,  mackerel, pigs, king, and a few others that I can't remember the names.  Seagulls, albatross, and pelicans swam around the boat looking for handouts.  We also, had a seal follow us around for a while.  When you hooked a fish, you had to reel quickly, so the seal or pelicans wouldn't eat it.  We also had a whale come up right next to the boat.  When it blew out water, it startled all of us.  I also saw a whale breach.  It breached a second time, so most of us saw the second jump.  We had a good day on the water and ended up with a wide variety of fish.  We will have some good dinners over the next few days.

The seal

The birds waiting for a hand out.

As they filleted our fish, the pelicans were waiting.

Fitzroy Falls

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Gabbie, Dale, Adam, & Kristin

Fitzroy Falls

This is the kids favorite part.

Today, the kids thought Dale and Gabbie should go up Macquarie Pass.  We curved our way up the mountain and stopped at the top at Robertson's, so Dagan could get a meat pie.  These are his favorite.  We stopped at the Cheese Factory before heading on to Fitzroy Falls.  The falls were great today.  With all the rain we've had there was a ton of water flowing.  Ftizroy was larger than we had ever seen, and there were quite a few more waterfalls that we could see along the path.  It was neat to see.  We walked on the path to the lookout that shows Fitzroy Falls from the opposite side.  After our bushwalk, we went into Kangaroo Valley.  We had some lunch, and then drove up and down the mountain again on our way back to Wollongong.

Adam & Dale with 2 watefalls behind them.

The six of us with the falls behind us.

Gerrigong Golf Course

Monday, July 8, 2013

Dagan is shooting up hill.

Look at Sydney's form.

This tee box had a great view.

Which one drives better?

Is Adam looking for his ball or going to the beach?

Dale & Adam

Gabbie & Sydney

Views of the mountains & beach

Which one of us is putting?

We went golfing today.  Adam and I decided we wanted to try a different course.  We had driven by the Gerrigong Golf Course a few times and thought it looked very picturesque.  We were right.  It is located right on the ocean.  Some of the holes are right next to the beach.  The views are pretty amazing.  In the opposite direction were the mountains, so no matter where you looked you had a great view.  The course was rather difficult due to the hole placements and hills.  Gabbie and I had the slow cart.  It barely made it up the steep hills and got stuck in the mud one time because the ground was really moist from all the rain we had gotten.  Adam and Dale were in another cart.  Their cart's brakes didn't work very well, so they had that to deal with.  Sydney and Dagan rode in the same golf cart.  Both really enjoyed driving the cart around the course.  They ended up with the only cart that worked correctly and drove fast.  

Sydney with Dale & Gabbie

Sunday, July 7, 2013

platypus

cuttlefish

Dale and Gabbie looking
at the  skates.

Wrasse fish

Dugong

I wonder if Dagan got a good picture.

Dugong from above

We went to Sydney today.  We ended up driving because they closed down our train line again.  Frustrating!  We parked under the Opera House, walked to Circular Quay, and hopped on a ferry to Darling Harbour.  We wanted to go to the Sydney Aquarium.  The platypus were swimming today. We always enjoy seeing them because they are just so strange.  We wandered our way through the aquarium.  We saw a cuttlefish, sharks, sawfish, skates, dugong, wrasse, etc.  It is a really good aquarium.  When we were leaving, the line to get into the aquarium was out the door.  Thankfully, we decided to go early.

Gabbie & Dale

Sydney Harbour Bridge and Luna Park

Sydney Opera House at dusk

 We stopped for a snack before hopping the ferry back to Circular Quay and The Rocks, our favorite part of Sydney.  We went to the market.  Sydney and I did some more shopping before getting dinner at Lowenbrau Keller.  We enjoyed meandering our way through the alleyways and looking at the lights of the city on our walk back to the car.  

Kiama

Saturday, July 6, 2013

Adam, Sydney & Dale walking on the rocks.

Dagan looking for rocks for his collection.

Dagan found this rock that moved.
Adam had to try it out.

Dale & Gabbie

Dale and Gabbie arrived yesterday.  We let them have a pretty quiet day.  Today, we decided to head to Kiama.  We went to the blowhole first.  Unfortunately, the water was really calm, so the water didn't shoot out of the blowhole.  We went out on the rocks instead.  We always love the view from the rocks.  The water was a beautiful blue.  We wandered around town for a little while before going to Bombo Headlands.  Dagan gave us a good scare here.  Sydney and he climbed around the water to get to the top of the pile.  On the way back, the water had splashed up where they were going to walk.  As Dagan was trying to get around the wet rocks, he slipped and slid 10 feet towards the water.  Thankfully, he caught himself.  Otherwise, he would have fallen into the deep water where the waves were crashing into the rocks.  It was scary.  In the end, he didn't even get a bruise.   He just had to add a little excitement to our day.

Sydney & Dagan at the top of the rocks.
Below by the water is wear he slipped.

They were watching the fishermen below us.

Weekend in Basin View

Friday, June 28, 2013 - Monday, July 1, 2013

Sydney caught a big one. Ha!

We went south down the coast to Basin View on the St. George Basin to spend the weekend with some friends at their holiday home.  It had been raining all week, so it was nice to get out of the apartment.  Rod and Lucy were there when we arrived.  Rod told us about how high the water level was due to the amount of rain we had gotten during the week and the damage it has caused.  We hung out until the rest of the girls arrived.  After everyone arrived, the kids played some games before we called it a night.

On Saturday, it was still raining.  Georgia drove Cheryl and I to the store to get food.  Rod worked on his boat, and the rest of the kids played games.  In the afternoon, we were all going a little stir crazy, so we drove around to see the area and stopped in Milton for coffee.  Sydney actually saw a good friend from St. Mary's while we were there.  We watched a movie and played cards until late in the evening.

Sophie fishing at sunset

Sarah holding a fish

Lucy, Dagan, Rod, & Sydney fishing

On Sunday, it finally stopped raining.  We had jaffles for breakfast.  They are toasted sandwiches over a fire.  They were delicious.  We will be buying the pans to make some at home.  Then the kids headed to the water.  Lucy and Dagan went kayaking.  Sydney, Sarah, Sophie, and Dagan walked to the end of the jetty.  The jettys in the area had lots of damage from the water levels being so high.  Most of the top boards on their jetty were missing, so it was a balancing act to get to the end.  Since it was so tricky, the kids and Rod walked around finding boards that had come off and laid them out on the jetty.  This make it easier to get to the end.  Afterwards, Rod got the boat in the water with Adam's help, so they took the kids out fishing.  When they returned, it was dinner time.  Then we played some more cards and watched another movie.  It was another late evening.

a flathead

On Monday, it was a beautiful sunny day.  We had jaffles again for breakfast.  Yum! The kids decided they wanted to go skiing and kneeboarding.  Sarah went first.  Then Dagan, Georgia, and Sydney went.  My kids said it was strange to kneeboard on smooth water that tasted like salt.  After the kids were finished, Rod took Cheryl, Adam and I for a ride around the basin.  It is a large body of water.  One part is connected to the ocean through an inlet.  We didn't travel down that part.  It was really nice to be on water that was smooth.  It reminded us of being Up North.  We headed back to Wollongong around dinner time.  We had a great time with our friends! , 2013

Luna Park/Bondi Beach

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Ferris Wheel with bridge in the background

The Tango

This one wasn't Dagan's favorite.

In Coney Island on a slide

We went into Sydney today.  Dagan has been wanting to go to Luna Park.  It was a little rainy, but we don't have much time left, so we went anyway.  The kids got the wristbands that allowed them to go on all the rides and into the Coney Island Funnyland building.  They went on the ferris wheel first.  Both kids said the view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House were great from the top.  Then they went on the tango.  Both liked this one.  Afterwards, they went on the bumper cars, but laughed about them again.  In Australia, everyone has to go in the same direction, so no one smashes into each other.  Both would rather smash into each other.  At this point, we convinced Dagan to go on a bigger twirly ride.  He didn't like it very much.  He isn't a huge fan of bigger rides.  Then they went into the Coney Island building.  It is the oldest building at Luna Park.  They went down a couple of slides in potato sacks.  One was really steep.  Sydney said the guy at the top just said to scoot over the edge.  They also went on the turkey trot, barrel of fun and a maze.  When they came out, Sydney went on the ride that went upside down.  She really liked it.  Before heading to out, Dagan went back into Coney Island, and Sydney went on the Rotor.  It reminded me of a ride we used to go on at Great America.  It spins in a circle, and you stick to the wall.  She liked this one, too.

Sydney is in green in the top row

Sydney is stuck to the wall.  It was spinning too fast to get a good picture.

The three of us at The Stuffed Beaver

 Adam decided we needed to go to Bondi Beach on the way home.  This is one place we hadn't been yet.  We drove down to the beach.  There were lots of surfers in the water and rain.  At this point, Dagan decided he was hungry and wanted to find us a place to eat.  We ended up going to The Stuffed Beaver.  It was really good.  We should have found this place earlier.  They had they best burgers.