Apart from sitting around a table groaning with food and wine, with family and friends, camping at the beach IS MY FAVOURITE THING TO DO. With temperatures in Sydney due to hit the high 30s this weekend, we couldn't have picked a better weekend to choose to head south to Gerroa. We normally rent houses in this lovely village, but decided to check out the campground for the first time on this trip with the McPhersons. Although the campsite itself was fairly uninspiring, with tiny pitches, it did have a few things to recommend it. First, it had a pool, secondly it had a jumping pillow- more on this later - and third it was right behind Seven Mile Beach, one of our favourite Australian beaches. Here it is below - count those seven empty miles.
Lenka and I headed up the camping planning committee and agreed early on we weren't interested in lots of campsite cooking and clearing up. To that end, the two families arrived within an hour of each other on Friday night and, after tent pitching was completed, feasted on take away fish and chips. The gin was opened, the children slept and the weekend began.
On Saturday we awoke to an overcast but hot day and a bacon and egg roll fry up was the order of the day. I fell in love with Jules and Lenka's super efficient but compact camping stove. The swimming pool was immediately used to cool off and as the day unrolled, we were in the welcoming chilly surf, in and out of the pool and on the Jumping Pillow. The latter is a sort of permanent bouncy castle but without walls and surrounded by sand. We all had a hoot jumping about on it with the kids, but it was hot work.
We spent the afternoon in the Crooked River than runs down from the hills to the coast, paddling and being carried out towards the sea by the current.
Scarlett had her first go boogoe boarding - here's a short film clip of her.
On Saturday night we frocked up and walked along the beach to the Seahaven Cafe, the only place to eat in Gerroa, for a lovely family dinner. The kids were angelic and while we finished eating, we let them all go across the road to a small playground by the river. We had a lovely moonlit walk back along the beach to the campground and once the kids ( and Jules) fell asleep at 8.30pm, Rob, Lenka and I put the world to rights with a few glasses of champagne.
This morning we swam and jumped again while the boys packed up and after the McPs headed back to Sydney, we spent the rest of the morning at the beach. Rob smoked a fag, extinguished it and then put it on the sand near our things, so he could pop it in the bin when we left the beach. There was quite a strong seabreeze and, with the high temperatures, the entire state was observing a strict 'no fire' ban. We were messing about in the water, glancing back at our things now and again and I noted how the strong wind was sending sand flying over Rob's (new beach Twister) towel. I said "it almost looks like your towel is on fire." We looked again and it was - on fire, embers flying everywhere. Somehow the wind has reignited, Rob's fag and the towel hadblown on top of it. Here is the after shot of the towel, burnt beyond repair.
We drove back to Sydney this afternoon to 40 degrees. It is unbearable. We have filled the bath with cold water, are wearing wet clothes to keep cool and have plonked the kids in front of the tv in just their underwear and with wet flannels and water bottles to keep themselves cool. I am not looking forward to the disrupted night's sleep ahead.
I got back yesterday afternoon from a fantastic weekend in Melbourne with Kendall. Rob booked it all up for me a few weeks ago and couldn't get me out the door fast enough on Friday morning. Rob felt greatly revived after his ski trip to NZ earlier in the year and was keen for me to also benefit from time away from family and responsibilities. (At least I think that's why he was so keen to see the back of me.) I flew to Melbourne on Friday morning, marvelling at how easy it is to get on and off and actually sit on a plane without children. Who knew it was possible to hold a drink and a conversation at the same time? Although it's only a 90-minute flight, I enjoyed every minute of it. I met Kendall at his gorgeous new home, an apartment in building converted from an old chocolate factory, in the fabulously hip suburb of Fitzroy. After a cuppa and a quick catch up we were out the door for a long walk perusing the many shops, bars and restaurants. The nearest I can come to describing Fitzroy is like a cross between Portobello Road (of the late '80s/early '90s at least) with NY's East village. There are no chain restaurants or shops here, instead one-off vintage clothes and furniture shops, beautiful stationers, unusual bookshops, tiny galleries, craft and art shops and fantastic places to eat are the order of the day. It didn't feel at all like we were in Australia. We had lunch on the roof (another Melbourne anomaly - why doesn't Sydney have more rooftop bars?) of a huge old building, with paint peeling off the walls and a huge cupie doll on the outside, dining on $4 pizzas and wine. Kendall had told me to bring a cardi, due to Melbourne's notoriously unpredictable weather,but instead we were drenched with sun, making a sunscreen application before lunch. In the afternoon, we napped at home for an hour before getting dressed up and heading into the city on the tram. We started at Coda, a Melbourne 'it' place, a fantastic subterranean bar & restaurant serving small share plates and great wine. We met up with Peter Gotting, an old journalist friend from the Herald, who I hadn't seen for years. We carried on to Movida, one of Melbourne's best places for tapas, located in a laneway famous for graffti and street art, followed by two more roof bars. The first, Madame Brussels, features staff wearing tennis gear in a room decorated with fake grass and cocktails served in huge jugs. The last bar was on the roof next to the theatre and offered a whole different perspective of the city.We jumped on the tram just as the heavens opened, arriving home for another glass of wine and a fairly reasonable bedtime of midnight.
On Saturday morning Kendall whipped up a superb breakfast of avocado, tomato and bacon on crusty bread and then we headed out first to an artist's market and then in and out of more shops and galleries before settling for an hour or two in a little French bar eating fresh terrine, gravalax and bread with a couple of glasses of wine. Kendall made it so easy for me to relax, always happy to stop when I wanted to look at something, carrying on when I wanted to and, like me, he's fond of a disco nap, which is what we had on Saturday afternoon to be ready for our next night out. By the time we came to leave for the Christmas drinks party Kendall had arranged in a bar, it was absolutely chucking it down, so we jumped in the car to drive the short distance to a local Vietnamese place for a quick bowl of noodles and laksa. Onwards then to a great little bar, Kendall and his friends had taken over for the night for an annual catch up. Lots of drinking and laughing ended at 1.30am with Kendall and I jumping in a cab home for a debrief. We awoke on Sunday morning, surprisingly free of hangovers, and headed around the corner, in much cooler weather (hooray for that cardi) to a cafe serving baked eggs and bacon with cauliflower puree - God it was good. Coffee, newspapers. Bliss. I flew back to Sydney yesterday afternoon to weather 10 degrees warmer than Melbourne and to the beautiful smiling faces of my girls and Rob, before an afternoon dip in the paddling pool. 
