Catching Up With a Long Time Friend

 I went to Floriade twice this year and both times catching the Light Rail! An old friend from my teacher's college days came to visit from Warrnambool, Victoria. We met at teachers college so have been friends for over 40 years, so that makes us "old friends" Kerrie stayed in the city for a few days and caught up with some other friends and visited some of our National Institutions. I caught up with her a few days and we went to Floriade and also the Arboretum.

Then Kerrie and I headed down to the South Coast for around 5 nights, staying at Long Beach. We had a great time down there exploring the South Coast. .

This was our accommodation at Long Beach, very comfortable and lovely bush setting.

Most days began with a walk along our local beach.

 We spent one morning exploring the Eurobodalla Botanical Gardens. The gardens had been destroyed in the 2019/2020 fires, but the buildings were saved. It was amazing to see the recovery efforts. 

kWe also enjoyed exploring Mogo, the highlight was going into the Mogo Pottery and Gallery which had some amazing art works. I loved the lovely colours and the garden feeling it gave off. The wooden church, which was their gallery space,  had been destroyed in the fires and they rebuilt a replica of the church.

Another day we headed north up to Uludalla and Mollymook and discovered some lovely beaches, a flora walk, a fossil walk and lovely coastal view, and a  lighthouse ,

A shell fossil

The sparkling Uludulla Habour

Another day we headed south and discovered some more coastal walks and beaches. We went as far south as Bodalla and then made our way up the coast back to Long Beach stopping along the way and various points.

Kerrie on the Guerrilla Bay Walk

Me on a different spot along the same walk

We had an ice-cream lunch at the Bodalla Dairy- still disappointed that Kerrie wouldn't even try the smoked ice-cream!

Bodalla has this lovely church up on the hill so we walked around and went inside too.

On the way back we stopped at Broulee which had a lovely bay beach,

One morning I headed out to check out the start of the Mummuramang Coastal Walk which ends at Maloney's Beach which was a few minutes down the road from where we were staying. It starts at Pretty Beach and it is a three day walk.

This is the final staircase that takes you down to the end of the walk.

Lots of kangaroos taking in the beach views

I would love to do more of this walk. Once you climbed that steep staircase you had lovely views across to Batemans Bay.

There were cycads everywhere and all sizes.

Kerrie and I headed north again, first stop was Depot Beach where we did another section of the coastal work and more cycads.

We then headed up to Pebbly Beach and found a little cafe down the bottom of a drive through coastal rainforest so enjoyed a hot chocolate and muffin looking out across the ocean with kangaroos for company.

We had good weather down the coast, when we left Long Beach to head home it was 26 degrees, when we arrived in Braidwood it was 16 degrees, 15 minutes later a storm came through at it had dropped to 7 degrees, when we arrived in Bungendore it had dropped to 3 degrees and the cafe we called into for lunch had a fire going. By the time we got back to Canberra it was a balmy 13 degrees!

On our way down we stopped of at Braidwood and I took Kerrie into Len Mutton & Co, as I wanted to show here the old counters and the building inside. We ended up staying for quite a while and both came out with a few purchases including the same top and pants. We figured with one of us living in Canberra and the other in Warrnambool we were unlikely to be seen  together in our matching outfits.

We enjoyed out time away together and the opportunity so spend quality time together was great. Good friends are a real treasure!