Some mornings you wake up and have a conversation that goes a little like this… “Did you hear the rain in the night?”. “No”. “Oh. Well it was really loud”. Today the conversation, had we had it, would have gone a little like this… “Did you hear the rain last night?”. “What?”. “Did you hear the rain last night?”. “What?”. “Did you hear the rain last night?”. “Sorry I can’t hear you the rain’s too loud”.
The rain woke us at about 3am. I’m not sure what the criteria is to get rain classified as a tropical monsoon but I’m pretty sure this would have got close to meeting it. It was amazing. We’ve never heard anything like it. Despite lying next to each other we couldn’t hear a word each other was saying! The thunder was crashing. The lightning lit up the sky. Any second now we expected to hear the cry of “mummy” from the boys bedroom. Although we wouldn’t have heard it even if they were shouting because the rain was too loud! I decided to check on them but Toby was flat on his back asleep and Harry was on the top bunk fast asleep. How they could sleep through this is beyond me! Anyway Tracy and I lay in bed shouting at each other and waited for the sun to rise.
Once the kids rose from their beds and we’d polished off some tea, coffee and TimTams we thought we should investigate the nearby beach – the rain had stopped and the waves sounded impressive. On the short walk we saw some very brightly coloured birds – maybe parrots – and laughing kookaburras. This was our first wild kookaburra so I grabbed my camera and told the boys to be quiet as it sat in the tree above us. In Harry’s world “be quiet” obviously sounds like “make loads of noise pretending you’re a kookaburra”. Fortunately the real kookaburra must have thought Harry was real and he carried on laughing away up the old gum tree.
Next stop was the beach and even though it was cloudy it was warm and beautiful. The waves were crashing and two little boys started charging around, chasing a tennis ball and resisting the urge to get soaked in the sea before 8am! In amongst the shoreline we saw two puffer fish. Unfortunately neither had survived the wild night but the nice thing was that they had a smiley face even though they were no more.
After a nice walk along the beach we returned home and had breakfast – all this before 9:30am, most impressive! Then we loaded up the car and set off to Huskisson for a little exploration. First we walked on the beach – another one – and then round the small town where we bought some sea shoes for me and a nice top for Tracy. Then it was back into the car and along to …. beach. This was a beautiful beach combined with Moona Moona Creek which was coming down the valley to the sea. The combination created a lovely area for kids to play in – lots of shallow water and sand bars.
At this point it was getting hot in the mid-day sun so we went back to our house at Hyams and waited out some of the heat. Just after 2pm we drove the short distance along to one of the two beaches at Hyams Beach and we spent the afternoon playing cricket and flolloping in the sea. The particularly good thing about the beaches in Jervis Bay are that there weren’t any blue bottles so Toby was completely relaxed about playing on the beach and in the sea – thank goodness!
After a few hours on the beach it was time to go home, take a nice shower and a relax. Then, as we were in Australia it was time for dinner and a barbecue. Some steak, lamb and chicken were expertly cooked (can you guess who was cooking!!) and then we settled down for some Sunday night TV. After the noise of the night before we all trooped off to bed hoping for a quiet night and some sleep!