Rain and Other Inconveniences

As I write this, we are copping rain heavier than we have since the start of our journey. I'm pleased to say that we are reasonably waterproof, although we are certainly not sound proof! The sound of rain is deafening both inside the caravan (on the tin roof) and inside the annex (on the awning roof). I'm just glad we're on a concrete slab this time round - slabs are an inch or two above ground level, so the theory is you are dry, even if the ground is sodden. Happy to see the rain - we desperately need it of course - but not looking forward to the possibility of packing down in pouring rain again. Not fun.

I have been out of action this week a bit - I seem to have caught Grace's lurgy, and have been quite ill with a sore throat, runny nose, and a horrible cough. I am on the improve, but certainly far from my best -definitely getting better not worse. Whew.

We really like Manning Point - it's sleepy and has real character. It *is* however without conveniences like a supermarket, which makes food shopping somewhat hard (given our very small fridge) but it's nothing we can't overcome with a bit of planning. It's an 80km round trip to Taree, so you don't want to be running that journey every day.

We went for a walk out to the ocean side of Manning Point today (it's a bit sad it's taken 5 days of us being here to do that) but glad we did it. Grace had a ball walking in the shallows, splashing around when the waves came in, and generally getting sand everywhere.
Manning Point's beach is your standard ocean beach - you could walk for miles. Plenty of fishermen there, fishing for whiting, which they tell me sit in the gutter about 20 metres off shore, either side of high tide. Bait is not an issue - just dig yourself some pipis (incidentally some of the largest I have ever seen - maybe 2-3 inches across).

On Tuesday we move to Port Stephens (Anna Bay) for 2 weeks. We're taking a punt on the 2 weeks thing - everyone tells us how special the place is, so we figured we'd stay for a couple of weeks. Why not!?