road trips

I was going to write a long post detailing the events of my road trip. I even starting writing it up in Word. But I came to the realisation, that
a) I can't sit still for that long
and
b) I can't capture what an awesome time it was with a few words

So brief snapshots...

I headed north, ended up at a farm in Gloucester. Olive trees, hills, orchard, cows and horses - beautiful!

Picked up a friend and we headed out to Forster. There we spent a few days camping with some good (but sadly not seen muuch throughout the year) friends.
Camping was great. I feel totally relaxed. We went on a catamaran, laid in the sun, went to NYE fireworks at Forster/Tuncurry (Tuscany as we have now renamed it), fishing, sat in cafes, and caught crabs.

Going running along a beach at midnight trying to catch crabs with your bare hands was a great workout, and heaps of fun. There were stringent guidelines. As it was a national parks area where we were camping, no crab must be harmed in the catching process. You couldn't use anything other than your hands, and you had to hold it for a minimum of 5 seconds (which when you are holding a crab that is trying to nip you, seems like a very long time).

Driving back south, we narrowly missed the fires on the central coast. We got through the F3 about 15 minutes before it was closed. Fortunately, as my friends that I was driving had to catch a flight back to NZ. Not so fortunate for many of my camping compatriates. They left several hours after us, and got caught in the road blocks.

Well, I wish I had piccies, but I forgot the camera (der fred). I hope this has in some small way captured the fun that I had on my road trip.

I am back home now. I took my first 2 loads of stuff over to my new flat yesterday. Very exciting. I took some pics of that, so I will upload them later.