PORT STEPHENS

STAY-CATION DAYS 2, 3, & 4:
Last week during our holiday, we decided to take the girls North a bit to see Port Stephens.  Port Stephens is approximately a 2.5 hour drive from Sydney.  It is a port that is 2.5 times larger than the Sydney Harbour and forms a bay called Nelson Bay.  It is a beautiful bay with lovely beaches and the bay is the home to many bottlenose dolphins.  

We had a GREAT time filling the trip with sandboarding, shopping, watching bottlenose dolphins in their natural habitat, and enjoying their famous Bub's Fish and Chips (best in the state of New South Wales).   As we were driving there, Tom and I thought it felt like the rural towns that you see on the way to the Outer Banks in North Carolina.  It was a little weird to know that we are living in Australia where the vegetation and landscape is different being half a world away but we were having a deja-vu moment.

Sandboarding was a blast.  We rode in this really fun 4-wheel-drive red bus out to the dunes.  We hiked the sandboarding hill after a few instructions.  It was a little scary going down the first hill and then we got the hang of it.  Jane went down the hill 20 times in an hour (record is 65 times in 4-hours).  She was like a little energizer bunny....I was exhausted after hiking the hill a few times.  We had a few tumbles where our ears and hair got filled with sand but, we did not have any broken bones --- SUCCESS!  I have to say that I like the sandboarding more than snow sledding.  

Tom

Claire

Grace

Stephanie

CRAZY - Jane

We also took the kids on a charter cruise that took us dolphin watching in the bay.  They are stunning creatures and it was fantastic to see how playful they are.  Port Stephens is lovely.