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| The Ju Ju Man |
Who is this you might ask? Well we found this fella on Peasoup Beach in Port Fairy and Jason quickly christened him 'The Ju Ju Man' We have adopted him as our lucky mascot, always riding along with us. He's a pretty cool travelling companion, doesn't say much though.
Leaving Sydney with blue skies above us and the bike all packed up (donning brand new boots from my fabulous fiance) like a Spanish donkey, piled high, we rode for 6 hours. With mile after beautiful mile of scenery all around us, we arrived in Nambucca Heads with the light fading and two very numb bottoms! We met Bob the dog, a gorgeous big boy who was very pleased to see us, and his two side kicks, Boy Cat and Girl Cat, or bum cat as she’s affectionately known. Anne told us that Girl Cat was bitten by a spider on the bottom and after many operations and lots of dollars, she now has a reconstructed back end! Just like Kim Kashardian!
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| Outside Annie and Ian's Place |
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Nosey Bob
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Thin White Duke No.1
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| Thin white duke No.2 |
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| Lovely Boy |
Anne and Ian our latest hosts have a wonderful home and very generously also left us the use of there SUV to use whilst they are away. Wow how kind is that! Its made such a difference meaning we can take Bob with us when we go exploring.
Anne is a talented writer of romantic/erotic fiction, coming to this new career only in very recent years after several other successful careers. She has very quickly had her four novels published and this new adventure in writing takes her all over the place. I am very much looking forward to picking her brains about how she managed to have so much success so quickly. Here are some of the covers from her books and Link to her website.http://www.annieseatonromance.com/
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| Annies book covers |
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| Where the magic happens! |
Anne has a new release coming out For LESS than the price of a cup of coffee...only $2.99.. and a damn good read of suspense, intrigue, tropical islands and of course hot sex...anyone can pre-order a copy of DANGEROUS DESIRE .http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Desire-Entangled-Ignite-ebook/dp/B00EGJ33YG
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| What a splendid Library. |
One of the places we like to visit when in a new town is the library. Nambucca has a beauty. Its all brand new, brilliantly laid out and has a wide selection of magazines, papers and of course wonderful books! Im an avid reader, a would be writer and lover of pages of text and ink. Nambucca library has huge windows and lovely seating overlooking the bushland. Its a great place to sit updating the blog and applying for the next housesits. Peaceful and happy time for house sitters!http://www.nambucca.nsw.gov.au/cp_themes/default/page.asp?p=DOC-KPH-01-80-35
A five minute walk from the front door we are blessed with a staggering 6 Kms of unspoilt empty beach! WOW. Over several morning walks with Bob we have been treated to black cockatoos, huge groups of pelicans, so many birds we cant keep up and pods of dolphins!
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Mr Bob Dog on the move
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Man and Sea, very contemplative
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Bob our latest lovely friend is a great big lolloping old sook. He looks so happy, and he smiles! Really he does. He loves the beach and makes friends with everyone. He's such a good lad, I have been enjoying watching him soaking his belly in the shallows of the water. Jason has got a NBF.
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| Bob's famous belly dunks |
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| Happy Bob Dog |
Mr Cat and Mrs Cat are slim white wild looking things; I am reminded of David Bowie, The Thin White Duke years, I like em; they are a bit rough round the edges,
nervy and twitchy wild things.
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| tea time for pussy cats |
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| Finishing off the garden with Mr Puss |
We have tackled our
very first fresh dog pooh scooping today. Luckily we had a pooh bag, or lord
knows what we would have used. Bob has a huge capacity for pooh, Jason’s face
was hilarious, I laughed like a drain for about ten minutes, until Bob dropped
another deposit and it was suddenly my turn to collect the damage. Not so funny after all it seems!
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| Bobbbbbbbbbbb! |
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Making friends and smelling bottoms
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We have been exploring
the local area by foot with the trutsy Bob at our side. It is practically asthma inducingly gorgeous. The beach is
spitting distance (well almost I haven't tried but its pretty close) from our newest front door. Long eye
aching stretches of white soft sand, mostly abandoned, left with only us, Bob and
few other dog walkers enjoying it each morning.
Each day brings new
wildlife treats, we have seen pods of Dolphins this morning as many as 15 all at once.We watched them playing in
the surf, so close to the shore, It was truly tremendous! Black Cockatoos in flocks arguing in the palm tree
tops, huge Pelicans flying over head cruising so gracefully on warm thermals,
their huge wing spans gobsmacking as they fly right over our heads, Their big
feet slap heavily at the water as they come in clumsily to land!
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| Photograph Luke Sullivan |
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| Peckish pelicans |
Walking through the nearby bush land is orchestral, when the wind blows making the Eucalyptus tree tops sway they add another layer of sound and its easy to get lost in some sort of nature music.
The skies are another thing altogether. I can’t get my hat on about the un broken gaping brilliant blueness of it. It seems to irradiate. Looking up through the trees I’m reminded of Japanese prints with graphic cherry blossom set against full blue backgrounds, or cornflower blue cotton shirts perfectly ironed, crisp and clean and stretched out our warm ironing boards.
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| See what I mean, look at this |
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| Real photo of the sky |
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| Love this shot |
Australia seems to keep
on giving, whilst on the beach we saw a few FWD vehicles cruising up and down
slowly on the hard wet sand early in the morning most of them surfers with
their boards getting to the far end of the beach where there seems to be magic
if waves are your business.
Jason flagged one of them down and
discovered that if you have a permit you too can drift along leaving tracks on otherwise empty slice of paradise looking like a super dude.
So we found ourselves at
the tourist information http://www.nambuccatourism.com.au/
In five minutes with no wiff whaff, no red tape or
surly faces, we were given the golden ticket or pink sticker in this case to take the motorbike down to the shore and
ride the bejesus out it.
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| Happy Chappy |
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| Happy Sticker |
Guess who had a face like
Christmas with snow and extra pressies. Very chuffed my man was, we went home
to check out the tides (very sensible) before driving down the next day to take
the bike on its maiden beach voyage. I was given an ever so slightly serious
chat discussing art direction and composition for the official photographs then
let down quite gently. It seemed I would not be able to jump aboard for the
first run, “just in case the double load was too heavy" and “we
found ourselves sinking……..” Not that I minded in the least. Jason’s face was a
picture and as he rode off and as I watched him disappear with sun shining
majestically, I couldn’t help but think, PHOWAR
that’s my man!
I can’t quite believe
this is our current life. It feels very much like cheating somehow. We apply
with thought and effort to an a potential housesit who we think we might be a good match for. This is based on the animals first and everything else second. If they like us, we chat via email or Skype and discuss the house sit. Its usually very apparent if you will all get on and that it will be a great match.
We usually arrive a day or afternoon before the host leaves for a handover and face to face meeting. They hand over
the keys to their homes and sometimes cars, and entrust us, perfect strangers
to live in their homes and take(excellent)care of their pets.I love the openness and
trust involved in making housesitting happen. I feel proud that we are a part of it.
Its a win win for everyone.
Its wonderfully freeing
too. We have so little space on the bike, there isn’t room for many choices. Clothes,
books, toiletries have to be whittled down and made essential. Its very
focussing on what is actually important to you. Sounding a bit hippy here, but I
don’t mind. I have found out that a pair of jeans, something warm, a pair of
shorts, is enough (well almost) if I can bring my paints, pens, sketchbook, and computer too. Although I discovered at the farm, that having a small amount of nice smellies,
Aesop in this case, go a long long way to make you feel fabulous.
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| Oh those Aesop products are effective |
Then theres the
country. The land the land the land, stretching out infront of us. The bike keeps on churning up the miles with nothing but green forests and
mountains to stop us catching the horizon. Only beating the land are those blue
skies. So blue I feel we might be witnessing a new colour.
Australia is like that, I feel we have been watching the world around us
through very dirty windows, and now we are here they aren’t just spotless clean, they
have been removed completely. The inky black night sky is awash with stars, who knew there
were so many. The sunsets are vast, full of purples, salmon pinks, deep oranges and red. Driving along the bone
shaking roads, we slip through dappled light pouring through so many shades of
green I cant keep up. Its no wonder at all the Aussie's use the word Awesome, it was invented
for this place. Im often overwhelmed and wish I could have everybody I know to
witness it too. It doesn’t seem enough to me, to just see it, I want to remember
it all every leaf and bird sound and share it all somehow. Its so filling.
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| Beautiful forest stop |
Sunday. 'Oh hello Sun, fancy you turning up again'. We took Bob on a huge walk beach and bush on the menu this morning, and ended up at the Bookshop Cafe which has become our coffee fix hole of choice. New improved slim line Bob is getting serious attention and was even called a pup today. He's lapping it up of course, 'smiling' for all and loving the treats and fussings.
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| The Young Pup |
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| having picture taken now |
We have been frequenting this place,'Davis's Seafood' Its proper fish. Not that stinky, dripping wet, defrosted stuff you get from a supermarket. Proper fish, all fresh fresh fresh. When there are big shiny fish scales on the floor you know its fresh.
The owner knows his onions too, or fish I guess as it is a fish shop. He happily tells us all about emperor fish, flat heads, jewfish, yabbies, lobster tails and bugs. He has a smoke room, not for ciggies silly, but for his kippers!In this case its mackerel,tuna, salmon and sardines. He 'hot' smokes 'em, I don't have a clue what that is or entails, but holy mackerel(ahem)they are something else. He is basically a smoked fish pusher, he slowly reeled us in (see what I did there), started us on an entry level fish, a tiny bit of white smoked cod, familiar fish to us you see, then he upped the anti just a touch, with a taste of smoked Salmon, and then before we knew we were pre ordering smoked sardines and gobbling down smoked roe! It was, in hindsight a step to far. I knew i'd reached my limits at the smoked mackerel, but you know how it's is, one thing leads to another and before you know it your on the roe! Those evil sardines, terribly moorish, I'm not even a fish fan and I'm dreaming about them. He has us in his filleting grip that fish man, We're well and truly hooked! (sorry it was there for the taking).
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| Beautiful smoked Cod salad! |
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| Yummy Prawns |
Macksville is beautiful place, reached over a wide river across a beautiful covered bridge. We went for a jaunt in the car, and stumbled upon a great antique shop. Being a lover of all things old and abandoned it's my kind of heaven to roll around turning over old records, leafing through old postcards, rummaging and squirreling through racks of clothes looking for gold. Heres the nugget I found in Macksville.
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| My magic sketchbook |
It may not look like much to most but I think its magic! Its never been used all hand stamped numbered pages and smells of old paper and magic. I intend to fill it with coloured pencils and fabulousness. Keep 'em peeled to see how it pans out.
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| Drawing on the sunny balcony |
Another sun filled frying in the heat type a day here in Nambucca Heads. We love this place, whilst walking today we realised that we haven't had a day of rain in almost a month! Just those old big blue skies and a smile on our dials!
We love Nambucca! and we also love Scotts Head, which is about a 20 minute ride away. The vibe there is like a town left un hurried by modern life. Its beautifully unspoilt. The creek is crystal clear, wide and smooth. The beach is 9km long in a huge lazy arc with views of mountains in the distance. A small cafe, a bakery and thats about it. Just perfect.
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| A rare photo us both together |
There is a great look out at Scotts Head and the views over the water are fantastic, we took Bob for a long walk and enjoyed the views. Finally got a photo of us both together too!
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| Drawing on the beach at Scots Head |
We spent a lovely sunny Sunday on the beach at Scotts Head. I really enjoyed getting to christen my new sketchbook.
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| Bob and Jason enjoying themselves at Scots Head |
Jason has decided its really funny to keep jumping into my scenic shots photo bombing has become his thing. Here is a fine example of him doing just that. He and Bob had been having a lovely time running in and out of the glassy clear water.
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| One of the many fruit shacks on route to Scotts Head |
So its nearly time to leave. We've had a great time in Nambucca with Bob and The White Felines. Anne and Ian's place has been marvellous and so are they. We spent a great day and evening with them upon their return. It was lovely to hear all about their adventures whilst on their trip and of course to get to know them a little. We really liked them both and are very happy to have been asked back. Such warm and open happy people. We will of course be happy to return to take care of The Bobster and the Pussy cats and take advantage of all Nambucca has to offer.
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| Packing up and heading off |
Jason and I squeezed everything into the panniers, tied bags to the top of them, hoisted on a bag or two and then it was time for goodbyes.
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| This is Bob smiling a fond farewell |
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| Goodbye Nambucca we really liked you! |
Heres what Anne and Ian had to say about us. Thanks Guys! We thought you two were fabulous!
"Katy and Jason were our very first
experience with house sitting, and what a fabulous experience it became. The
initial contact, the Skype meeting and our emails were all conducted in a very
professional manner.
While we were away, Katy and Jason sent the
occasional email to let us know how our pets were, and how much they loved our
house. When we arrived home and finally met them, they had not only cooked our
dinner, but the house and garden were immaculate. Katy has a wonderful touch in
the garden and my plants appreciated her care.
Not to mention our Bobster dog, and two
white cats. They were in love with their new ‘parents’.
One of the best things about Katy and Jason
was how they immersed themselves in the local area, exploring and appreciating
where we make our home by the beach.
We would have absolutely no hesitation in
recommending them to anyone who is considering house sitters. We would be happy
to verify this reference personally.
Anne and Ian Smith
18 August 2013.
nambuccasmiths1@bigpond.com"
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| Happy to have his Dad back |
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| Katy and Jason |
Katy and Jason
ReplyDeleteWe are so delighted that you loved Bob and our two twitchy cats! Our beach, our lifestyle...you fitted right in!
It was wonderful having you look after our house...thank you SOOOOOOOO much!
Anne and Ian