South Coast Travels

For the last week I have been able to stay with Ellen and family down the South Coast. What a treat! There were 9 of us in all so a fun crowd.

On my first morning walk through the garden I found some of the produce ready to ripen...

Figs not ripe yet

Thornless blackberries ready to harvest but surrounded with weeds.

Gooseberries ripening but inaccessible due to Kikuyu.

That night we celebrated Ruby's (dog) birthday. She even had a candle which Pete helped her blow out.

The next day started with a weeding activity. After all the weeds were removed from around the blackberry Ellen planted some herb seeds.

Over the course of the week I took on the weeding of a triangular garden that was the view from my bedroom window. There was certainly a lot to remove, mostly Ehrharta (a grass).

The view from the front room is always stunning and you can actually see the ocean. Hence it is called the Ocean Room.

By my second last day I had finished the weeding in my patch. The garden is only half shaded so is really hot. I only did about an hour of work each day early in the morning, usually before many of the others were up.

Each day there was an activity for everyone to enjoy - we had charades, reading hour, planting out a large patch of succulents and this activity that was tie dying Tshirts.

The girls had received sewing kits for Christmas so they spent time some evenings learning the stitches needed to start those.

Most days there were outings to buy food (masked up of course), a visit to the Markets, a trip to the Farmers' Market, and beach trips but of course with the Covid issues still alive we avoided crowds where we could.

I went to two beaches with the group. One to Tuross Heads where it was not a good swim and one to "Secret Beach" which was a great beach. I actually got up to my waist in water but as it was the middle of the day it was far too hot for skin like mine to be exposed for a few minutes. After a short walk along the beach I retreated to the grass under the trees. 

The traffic both on the way down and home again was actually quite bearable so both trips were good.