Late May in Coffs Harbour

Well, 'tis now late May and we are stiiiiill in Coffs Harbour! Has that darn car broken down again ?!?!?!

Well, if you've read the page early May In Coffs Harbour, then you'll know that it's this time it's out of choice that we are still here. Thankfully.

This page should now really be called "Early June in Coffs Harbour" because it is now 1st June. Which means it is now winter. When we came to Australia, we arrived on 23rd June, 2004. When 1st September came, we were surprised to see that the children's teacher and others had announced that "spring had arrived". "What?...but it's not the 21st yet". 

We've visited some great beaches...

and been swimming in the sea too. We've seen some of the local wildlife...

Despite living in Australia for 4 years, we are still fascinated by seeing these creatures. Each time we see them, it's like a Mexican stand-off; we look at them and they at us waiting for someone to make the first move. Often the first move is made by us, reaching carefully for the camera. And then they make a move, drat, bounding off into the bush so that we are lucky to get a photo of a hazy blurred object some way in the distance! But we were lucky this time and we snapped 4 of them before they leapt away.

We saw some interesting rock pools and Joseph just had to touch the sea anemone in the left to make it curl up into tight bundles.

We visited a place with the fantastic name of Woolgoolga, where we've never seen so many parrots.

That was only a tiny fraction of them. The air was thick with them and we could barely hear ourselves over their squawking.

About mid-May we found a beach with some great rocks for playing hide-and-seek around.

...

and a park with some great views

The week after, I was over in Queensland for nearly a week inspecting boiler at a power station. The flights were fantastic, flying over Coffs Harbour and came back via Sydney and past the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

The children did a fantastic job of looking after Hayley whilst I was away. Joseph and Alexander learnt how to do several of the unsavoury jobs which I usually do. They didn't waste any time in telling me about them when I returned, "yeah dad, it was huge, it wouldn't come out, so I added more water and swished it around, when it did come out and made such a splash!".

[Unfortunately no photo available!]

We came across this sign on our travels. Well, you never know...

I'm still teaching maths (years 7-11) at Coffs Harbour High School - with 5 50 minute lesson a day (one with each year) With it being my first time teaching (apart from teaching rounds), it's a very exasperating, but rewarding experience. Preparation and oodles of marking though increases the work time considerably.

Meanwhile, Hayley and the children are doing well with the home schooling. When the weather is good, they work outdoors and they've also been to various museums and a factory in Coffs Harbour.

First weekend in June we are hoping to visit a  banana plantation...