Farewelled our friends Chris and Robyn today at Taree airport on the first leg of their fantastic sounding trip to Europe. They are frequent flyers with many, many overseas trips to talk about, like most of our friends. Dropping them off had me reflecting and thinking wistfully of my last overseas trip so many years ago and wondering...Funny how life turns out, isn't it? I had a year in Europe in the 70's and never doubted I would be back soon. But priorities change, circumstances change. Soon I had three children who were everything that mattered. Then, in what seems now like a short space of time, I dismantled that life and began to build a new one. A new husband, now five children, no house, no car, no savings. Overseas travel became an impossible dream. David says that we make the best choices we can at the time and it's true, I don't suppose I would have done anything differently. We've built houses and gardens and a reasonably functional stepfamily instead of albums of travel memories. We've raised our five children and they are all good people and we are so proud of them. But there was never any spare cash for expensive holidays.
David has also been doing some reflecting and thinking and also goal setting during his time at the ADAPT clinic in Sydney in recent weeks. So he tells me he has booked us an overseas trip! Its a surprise, he says. I don't know where we are going. It will be for 17 days in November. There still isn't much spare cash so I don't know whether to be scared or delighted! I guess I'm both.
Anyway, enough of all that. In the spirit of living in the moment today, after leaving the airport, we treated ourselves to a nice cafe on the banks of the Manning.
Fuelled up on coffee and cake, decided a bit of touristing was in order, so we went to have a look at Old Bar (below) at the mouth of the Manning, a local area I had never been to. Don't think I'll be going there again very soon. But the surfers in the waves at Saltwater looked pretty happy. Considering it is exactly the middle of winter. I wonder if there are surfers off Marseilles or Cannes in the middle of winter?
Saltwater Headland walk was next. The sea wind shears those paperbarks into a sloping canopy, under which it is still and beautiful, warm and shaded.
The paperbarks are fantastically contorted and Havisham-esque, with tatters of bark like fifty year old clothing.
It is not a long walk but worth doing.
Framed views to the Brother Mountains, northwards.
No whales today, but there was a pod of dolphins passing just as we paused to look.
Hard to catch them with the phone camera though.
This is the mouth of Khappinghat Creek, from the headland in Saltwater National Park. The lookout is the end of the walk. You can access the creek mouth by road from Saltwater, or on foot from Diamond Beach. Which we have done already, on another day when we decided to just go for a spontaneous walk in the spirit of eudemonia (happiness arising from a rational, active life). So, who can choose eudemonia as a life motto, despite whatever challenges get thrown?
We all can.
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