Saturday, April 30, 2016

Thirty three and thirty four: The Entrance

Saturday:

We spent the weekend at The Entrance with Nick, Ping and little Emma. It's a town on the beach a couple of hours North of home. It didn't start auspiciously at all. We booked our accomodation more than a week ago, and as we got closer to the time we found that the forcast was for rain all weekend! Nick and Ping were staying in a cabin at a campground, we had a serviced apartment. We didn't want to be confined inside the whole time.

There was a lot of traffic getting out of the city and we didn't get here until 1pm - Nick and Ping came earlier and already had lunch before we got here so we didn't meet up yet. We didn't know where to go to eat. We were on what we thought was the shopping strip on the Main Street, but there wasn't much open. Seemed odd for a Saturday. We eventually went to a crowded cafe, it turned out to serve what I would call hippy food. All organic bean sprouts and macrobiotic chicken. Tim and Aiden both loved their lunch, mine was partly to my taste and partly not (and I gave a lot of the nice bit to the kids so I ended up a bit hungry), Jasmine couldn't find anything she was willing to eat. So after a while I walked with her up to the local pie shop. It had literally four pies left sitting in the warmer, and all stuff Jasmine didn't like, like curry beef. We walked a bit more and I bought her an American muffin. It was raining and a rather gloomy.

Time to check into our accomodation. But there is no reception desk!?? We reread the confirmation email and it turns out we have to pick up the key elsewhere, from a locked box in town, for which they had sent us the passcode. Bugger. But the benefit was that at least we then found the true heart of town, down by the beach of course! We got our key and came back to find it didn't work. Couldn't get it to turn. So there followed an hour and a half of trying to call people, leaving messages, waiting for someone to call back, waiting for the guy to get here, and of course messages back and forth with Nick and Ping as to why we still couldn't meet them yet. The guy's master key wouldn't work either! But luckily he was able to give us another room and finally we got to go down to the shore. I was a bit annoyed that it was 4pm already! But at least it wasn't raining any more.

The Entrance is where the sea meets Tuggerah Lake over big sand flats that you can walk on at low tide. Lots of pelicans! We just missed the pelican feeding time.

The shore front is pretty, with playgrounds for children, grass, palm trees, benches, and lots of restaurants. Ping and I sat and had a snack and a chat while the menfolk looked after the kids, then walked a little before going to an Italian restaurant for dinner. The food was very nice (I had pasta with a spicy tomato, olive and bacon sauce). We came back to our room and the kids ignored the cold to have a quick swim in the pool before bed. So the last few hours of the day were pretty good.

Until Tim's allergies attacked, obviously something in the room, maybe the ancient sofa. He spent the rest of the night sneezing and blowing his nose.

Sunday:

We woke to the sound of heavy rain and thunder. But by the time we'd packed up and gone back to the seafront to find breakfast, it was merely drizzling. I had a lovely brunch of bacon and eggs. Then Nick and Ping wanted to go fishing, they had brought their rods with them. I found the rest of the morning boring and cold (I gave Aiden my jumper to wear over the top of his own so he wouldn't freeze, he has no body fat for insulation) but on the up side the kids got to try fishing with little hassle or expense. And Aiden caught a tiny fish.

At noon we decided we'd had enough fishing and left them to it. The drive home was a bit nasty, I was driving and missed a turnoff when we got to Sydney and was forced into the complicated city streets. Tim took over and we managed to navigate back home, the trip taking about half an hour longer than it should have.

The weather and the hotel debacle made it not an ideal weekend, but still better than camping! And I think it was a nice area.

I didn't focus on my diet over the weekend, but neither did I binge like Friday. I just ate normally. My tongue is a bit sore though, too much sugar (three cups of tea with brunch!). We have family coming over for dinner tonight. I'm making roast lemon chicken, yummy, dessert doesn't really appeal to me right now.

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