Shoal Bay

We have just spent the week at Shoal Bay with John and Leanne and 2 of Leanne's cousins and families. Shoal Bay is part of Port Stephens which is 3 hours north of Sydney and an even bigger harbour than Sydney Harbour. We took the speed boat up but unfortunately experienced strong westerly winds all week so only got out on it twice. The kids had a wonderful time with all the other children riding bikes, fishing and doing endless amounts of drawing and colouring. I actually managed a very brief hit of a tennis ball with Leanne which reminded me of how much I love the game and has inspired me to phone our local club and try to start playing more regularly. One of Leanne's cousins is a very keen fisher and has a boat suitable for deep sea fishing so he took Jules and John out one morning (starting at 4.45am!) for a spot of fishing and they came back victorious with 2 lovely sized snapper - Jules was responsible for pulling in one of them which impressed the children. We had bbqs most nights on John's portable weber - I was constantly amazed at the quantity of food he managed to cook so beautifully on such a small bbq. On Friday the wind finally calmed down a little bit so we went out on our boat and had a lovely day - we found a sheltered spot for a swim (only Tom was brave enough!) and then motored up the river until we found a cafe on the waterfront where we could moor up and ate oysters and prawns for lunch whilst the kids played on the beach. The bay was like glass on the way back so we were able to go at quite a speed which the kids loved. We came back to Sydney on Saturday and have had a quiet weekend catching up on washing, boat maintenance, cooking etc. Back to work/school tomorrow - boo hoo!