The day miraculously started off at 7am as we slept in a bit as did the children. After a bit of emailing, I was able to Skype mom in Martensville and have a good ten minute chat with her. It’s great to stay connected with the other side of the world!
We had a bit of breakfast and packed up for our adventure on the pontoon boat. Devin and Melissa's friends Jamie and Gita invited us to go for a tour around the many harbours in the Sydney area. We arrived to the cliffs above the bay and hiked down with 7 adults and 7 kids in tow. It was quite overcast and breezy but just right considering we had so much sun the day before at the beach. As we cruised around the many bays looking at the houses on the cliffs, it was clear that anyone on the water was quite well off. Jamie said the houses were all between 1.5 and 5 million. Yoikes. They are jammed right beside one another with very little privacy, but because of the year round temperate climate, everything grows like crazy and is green all year round.
There were many people out and about in boats of all shapes and sizes. Many people were out racing their yachts and on all sorts of water toys. Most of the massive boats 20 feet and longer were in the docked marinas set up every 300m to the cost of $2500 AUS / month. People with smaller boats just moored them to a buoy on the floor of the bay and paddled out on a dinghy or swim out if it isnt too far.
After touring around for several hours, we parked in one marina and watched Tim dive off the roof of the pontoon boat showing off his moves - most of which got the entire boat wet! Nicholas found the courage to give it a go as well and jumped into the ocean a few times. The water is 20 degrees - much better than the 16 degrees it was a couple weeks ago - but much cooler than the pool outside of our house that the children spend hours and hours in.
Just as we came in mid-afternoon and got everything packed into the vehicles, we got a quick shower for 15 minutes and then it cleared off yet again. We arrived home and entertained the kids with card games and such for an hour to give the ladies a break. Devin and Darren managed to get away for 3 hours to play some golf. The course was gorgeous and only $15 for all the golf you can play after 330 pm. There wasn’t a soul on the course so we got 14 holes in and headed home for supper. It was steak night and we didn’t want to over extend our good fortune of getting a few hours to ourselves on a weekend.
After a great meal of steak, potatoes and veggies, we got all the youngsters to bed and dove in for a couple hours of Texas Hold em.
poker. Krista made her usual early departure followed by Tim and Toni and Devin, Melissa and Darren battled it out for the $60 purse. After an hour, Darren had a substantial lead and Mel was down to $5 and in an effort of good faith to the hosts, i chose to take $25 out of the pot and they could split the rest. No need to be greedy - hopefully the bill at the end of the stay will be reduced after showing such EXTREME GENEROSITY in not kicking both their asses for the sake of filling the wallet! HA! Off to bed at 11 as the kids will make their usual 6 am appearance followed by Olympic running and stomping events in the room above ours.....
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