Fire, Spiders, Ice Cream Cake- not in that order.

Right so since we've been in Syderz we have basically been living the good life, as we are staying on a beautiful surf beach, everyday is wonderful and full of surfing, good food, and basically just awesome stuff. So apart from this magnificent house and the boat, my Aunty and Uncle (technically Great-Half Aunty and Uncle or something like that) also have a place out in the bush, in a town...village...hamlet... well a small settlement thing called Jilliby. As they have to maintain the garden and house there, we went up with them for the week.

It is different from the city, the nearest shop is a long way away, the post is delivered to one communal box on the main road into Jilliby and there are lots of horses. There is the main house and then a smaller separate building to the side with a garage and bedroom, which is where we slept.

They have two bicycles there, so on one of the first days we set off on a bike ride, just to wherever the dirt road took us. We ended up cycling for about an hour and getting to a really rocky, very steep road up to a forest of some sort, which was intriguing and the prospect of riding down the scary hill on the way back down was good one, and so we pedalled incessantly up the hill. Panting, sweating and with a friendly dog following us, we reached where we thought was far up enough to turn around, and with a few more pushes, straining my pulled left Gastrocnemius we were ready to head back down the rocky road before us, but wait, hang on now, what's this? I'm moving the handle bars, but the front wheel sure isn't moving, must have just come loose, I'll try and tighten it with my knees, oh nope, that hasn't worked, ummm right well my bicycle is now very useless and we're at the top of a very steep hill 6 miles from the house. So I told Ben he could ride the insane hill, whilst I walked the bike down. I soon got bored of the walking accompanied with the gradient, so I just got on and hoped that inertia was on my side. I nearly died a few times but eventually made it to the bottom of the hill. Then to cycle home was quite interesting, as the handle bar was in no way connected to the front wheel, and so whilst nearly getting hit by a few cars and riding into the long snake saturated grass more than enough, I mastered the new type of bike and just steered with my body weight, I think we actually got home faster than it took us to get to where we turned around. So yeah when it comes to bikes I'm cursed.

Apart from cycling mishaps we were Pete's little helpers for the week, assisting in putting up the new guttering around the garage, which involved many an encounter with creepy little critters. We also worked potting plants for a man called Greg, typically on the one day that it torrentially rained. I think we potted around 680 plants or something, basically loads. We were also fire starters and supervisors for an evening, trying to read my book by firelight left me with a very black face, but gosh did I look after that fire like a pro.

9 months ago my aunty Kath promised me a birthday celebration in Australia, and by goodness did she stick to her word. We travelled to Wyong home of the shallowest gene pool on the central coast, and the only place on Earth where you can buy a 'Calamari Burger', we simply bought cake and cheap Hemingway novels. Had an awesome few meals for my belated bush birthday, and then rushed into the room past our friendly Huntsman who came out every evening as soon as dusk was upon us and sat on our door, just waiting till morning.

We did loads of other things too, I looked for snakes and took photos, but failed at both and we generally just played around in the fields in the sun. It was good fun. Anyhow we're back now, look forward to a post from Benjamin about a certain Blue Mountains trip, that we may or may not have taken (we did take one).

Sorry there's no passion in my post, I just felt I should update.

Love Love Love

Sisi

x