100 miles from Sydney, a million miles from care...

If I was asked to name the most beautiful city in the world, I'd have to say it is Sydney. Although other cities have more beautiful historical buildings, and are architecturally more attractive, Sydney is blessed with the most amazing natural beauty, which has not been diminished by its development as a world city. Better still, if you fancy driving for a couple of hours for an afternoon out, you can be here in no time at all....



This is Seven Mile Beach, a national park a couple of hours south of Sydney - where we spent yesterday afternoon. We had gone out with the intention of visiting Jamberoo - a water park (although I was very much a reluctant passenger, as I couldn't understand why we were driving 2 hours to visit a place which had a pretend beach but there you go - the kids were desperate). However, when we got there, it was absolutely mobbed, with the most people I have ever seen in one place in Australia. Andrew didn't want to go in, and George wasn't bothered (we couldn't even find a parking space in the VAST carpark) but Anna was heartbroken. I had never wanted to go in the first place, so I kept quiet and let them decide what to do! In the end we decided to go to a beach.

We hadn't been south of Sydney before, although we had been told that it was beautiful - and it was. Rolling green hills, a rocky coastline at first then giving way to vast long sandy beaches backed by rainforest. We explored the are a little, stumbling upon this - The Blowhole - which was pretty spectacular.






The Blowhole was a small aperture in the rocks through which a spout of water was forced every time a wave came in. It made a terrific noise and was pretty impressive. George spent a long time standing in the spray area - it was 32 degrees yesterday - but Anna was still in the sulky recovery period after the Jamberoo disappointment.

When we got to Seven Mile Beach, it was perfect. The children stayed in the water for over 2 hours - it was crystal clear with flat sand and surf that was ideal for body boarding. In fact it was so lovely that even I had a go, which is highly unusual. Although it was very hot, on the beach there was the usual lovely sea breeze so it didn't feel uncomfortable. You do have to be very careful though - it's easy to think it is not that hot with the breeze, but then you take off your flip flops and discover that the sand is too hot to walk on.












We are so happy here - how couldn't we be? We are closer as a family, as we spend more time together. We are more relaxed because we are no longer both rushing about all the time. And when the weekend comes we can go to places that make us feel like we are on an exotic holiday. We miss everyone, of course, but we are so very fortunate that we have been able to make this choice and that we are able to have such a good life.

As the Ozzies say - it's all good....