April School Holiday - Part II Pambula Beach

During the second week of the school holiday, the girls and I headed to the Sapphire Coast on Wednesday to join our friends, the Borgos, at their holiday home in Pambula Beach.  The Sapphire Coast is along the eastern seaboard of Australia in south eastern New South Wales.  It's approximately 7 hours from both Sydney and Melbourne, and is a popular beach holiday spot for many Victorians.  Our road trip took about 4 hours in all.  We made one stop in Nimmitabel to try out the meat pies (and a coffee for me) from the local bakery. Yum!

The girls didn't see too much of the scenery along the way as they were enthralled with their movie, Aquamarine, one they have seen many times before.  The road down took us through many small Australian towns including Bredbo, Nimmitabel, Bemboka, and Candelo.  It wasn't until we were in the Snowy Mountains region heading up then down Brown Mountain that I wondered if I should be concerned about driving alone (solo adult, that is) with little to no mobile phone service in my 10 year old Subaru Outback.  Heading down the mountain through the switchbacks was a bit nerve-wracking!  But, Mother (as I call her) or Roo (as Uri and the girls call her) performed beautifully. 

As we entered the beach neighborhood where Sue's house is we saw many kangaroos on the side of the road and hopping through the neighbor's yards.  It was so fun to see them!  We enjoyed a tour through Pambula and Merimbula - getting a sense of where we were and a quick peak at the amazingly beautiful beaches surrounding the area.  What is so nice about this area is that it is surrounded by a couple of National Parks keeping the development in check.  Ben Boyd National Park is the one in the immediate area of Pambula. 

The first evening Sue exposed me to my first club experience.  Club Sapphire in Merimbula ended up being a nice place to go with the kids.  The food was okay, but what totally sold me was the "child-minding" or babysitting on-site.  Sue and I were able to enjoy our dinner in peace and have an actual conversation without interruption.

Some highlights of our Pambula Holiday:

Potoroo Palace - a place to visit to enjoy getting up close and personal with native Australian animals and creatures.

"I AM NOT A PORCUPINE...So, What am I?" I AM AN ECHIDNA (e-kid-na)

FEEDING THE KANGAROOS

BEAUTIFUL BIRDS

Kookaburra sits in the ole Gum Tree...

The Beach

A fun and delicious place to get fish n chips on the beach

Chloe playing in the sand

  

Trying to decide which magazine to submit this photo to...Gorgeous!



Sue enjoying the sun and the view



BFFs

Our hike to the river -  a nice easy walk through the sanctuary to the old horse-racing track ended up being an easy hike through the fields to the river.  It was worth it.  Gorgeous views along the way and we taught the girls how to skip rocks across the water.

Field of kangaroos

(Thanks for snapping this photo Anabella)

The Royal Wedding - I was a bit concerned before heading down to the beach that I was going to miss the Royal Wedding so I had Anabella ask some questions ahead of time..."do you have a TV at your holiday house?  will we get to watch the Royal Wedding?"  Luckily, Sue's mother is originally from Scotland and Sue lived in England for some time so she was very keen to watching the wedding.  In fact, she was quite informed...even better than the commentators.



Random pictures

"The dingo ate my baby"

Don't worry Ms. Sieber the girls did plenty of reading on holiday

Uri and Sue's husband, Travis, joined us on Friday for the weekend.  The husbands took the girls for another beach day while Sue and I got some retail therapy accomplished.  Before meeting back up with our families we had a delicious lunch on the wharf overlooking the main beach.  That evening we went to another club.  This time the golf club in Pambula.  Sue promised we would see kangaroos playing golf, but we didn't.  The food was quite good and there was child-minding.

We are so grateful that Sue and Travis shared this treasure of a place with us.  The Sapphire Coast is a gorgeous vacation spot with many pristine beaches, lush national parks and lots of things to do with your family.  It was the perfect Australian holiday!