Bermagui

We're back from our first summer beach holiday. I realise that, as Jossie is twelve and a half, we ought, perhaps, to have gone on one before. I could make excuses based on our distance from the coast and our need to use holidays to visit family, but I suppose that my own dislike of the beach has played a part in keeping us away. It is rather un-Australian of me not to love the beach but I simply don't understand the appeal. My skin is so fair that the summer sun is painful. The ocean is full of slimy, biting, stinging creatures and it pushes and pulls you. Once you have cooled off nicely, you have to walk on the sand to get to your towel - sand which then sticks to your wet skin and swimmers and gets in your hair and ears as well as your shoes, the car and your bed! Still, I do have some good memories of beach holidays from my childhood.

We went to Pearl Beach every January for two weeks. As a teenager I spent my days reading in the house and paying my brothers to go to the shop for me to buy lollies. The house we stayed in was on the headland so the shore was just below us. I may not have walked down the path at the bottom of the garden to the beach, very often, but I did like walking on the rocks and I loved falling asleep to the sound of the waves reaching the shore and retreating. I looked forward to going to Pearl Beach so I am very pleased that we have found a beach for our children to love.

Bermagui is on the south coast so you would think it would be quite quick for us to get to. That pesky Dividing Range makes any coastal destination a long journey! Lots of people from Wagga seem to choose Bermagui and though we chose it almost randomly after searching on the Internet, we think it is a lovely spot and we are all keen to go again. It has some very nice cafés and fabulous fish and chips.... which we may, or may not, have had twice in one week.

It's a bit hard to tell, but Joss, Toby, Andrew and Bethany are all in the water in this photo. They went swimming every day, though it wasn't hot. I bought my first swimmers since before Bethany was born and went in an ocean pool as well as the sea. One time in each. It was cold, but I didn't hate it.

When we weren't at the beach we were sleeping in, reading, playing Rummikub and doing puzzle books or drawing. Bethany loves to draw.

There are lots of beaches around Bermagui. We loved the rocks at Camel Rock and the long, quiet beach with silken sand where we saw the blue bottle.

I'm sure we'll be finding sand everywhere for quite some time. Bethany likes to be buried, Toby and Joss like to dig very deep holes.

We went to Magic Mountain one day, which was a great hit, and went to Tilba as well. It was Toby's birthday on Saturday - he turned 10! If you can't see your friends on your birthday, it is great to be at the beach.

We drove back over the mountains in pouring rain, into the heat of our inland home. It's nice to be back in our own beds but it would have been smarter to have come home on Saturday and had a day to get organised before starting work. My first day at work since before Christmas and it was my ten hour Monday! At least I am sensibly going to bed before 1am. I am absolutely going to stop now and turn off the light. I still have to write about all the books I read. There's always another day.