DAYS 61 - 64 (16/6 - 19/6): Sydney to Newcastle to Tea Gardens to home! (Dharug/Eora to Awabakal to Worimi to Yaegl/Gumbaingirr countries)

DAY 61 (16/6): An early morning start to reach Newcastle in time for our grand-daughter Liana's 5th birthday celebrations.  So hard to believe she is 5!  As is so often the case, watching her open presents and celebrate the day was a delight.  We spent quite a bit of time at a playground so all the party food of the day was well and truly run off.

The cake was something else.  Georgie is a very clever cook.

DAY 62 (17/6): A lazy family start to the day followed by my first ever facial!  Ella, one of my daughters-in-law does this, among other things, so my face, dried out from months in central australia, was given a treat.  I felt like I had walked out of her studio with a new face.  

Later in the day, I reintroduced myself to the game of 10-pin bowling!  I don't know how long it is since I have played and that length of time showed!  Why is it that no two attempts to bowl end up in the same place?  Pete was suffering the same fate so our two boys, Sam and Alex, blitzed us in the scoreline. Nevertheless, it was a lot of fun.

The rest of the day was spent at their home, playing with the grandchildren, chatting, and enjoying our evening meal together.

DAY 63 (18/6): We woke up to a perfect day so, together with Sam and Ella, took our youngest grandchild, Arlen, to the beach.  The birthday girl was being treated by Alex to her first ever movie - The Super Mario Bros. movie.  Liana plays Mario Cart and she was really looking forward to this. Alex sent us this photo.  She looks set for a good time. 

Merewether Beach was very busy - or at least the sidewalk was but the sea was like a lake, calm and no waves. Perfect.  We adults enjoyed numerous sightings of whales making their way up north, some of them quite close in.  They didn't appear to be in any hurry - perhaps they, too, were enjoying the calm seas.  Arlen was just enjoying running around on the pavement. We headed down to rockpools just south of the Merewether Baths where we all had fun playing in sand and water and with rocks and seaweed.

With mixed feelings (it is lovely to be with family but we are looking forward to getting home), we headed north leaving Arlen in the care of Sam and Ella. Not that we were going far. We were heading to Pete's Dad's place in Tea Gardens. It was lovely to see him looking well and good to catch up. We enjoyed the afternoon and evening with him.

DAY 64 (19/6): I awoke early and went for a walk in anticipation of another long day in the car. Brrr.  Supposedly it was 5.7 degrees outside, but according to BOM it felt like 0.8.  Definitely, with a frost still visible on the grass.  

I hadn't thought to take gloves and my hands froze!  Thank goodness for jean pockets.  Another beautiful day though - clear as a bell and no wind. On my walk I passed by a car outside a nursing home with a Deathadder sticker on it.  Would you trust a nursing home nurse with that emblazoned on their car?

With Pete's dad, we decided on breakfast out which we enjoyed with a view over the Myall River.  So pretty and although we were sitting outside rugged up, gradually the sun began to warm us up.  Even saw a willie wagtail again.  We had missed them in Sydney. 

After saying goodbye to Ross, we headed northwards - home.

We are now home after driving approximately 12,000 kms - a lot more than we had originally anticipated (due to our broken strut and the altered Simpson Desert Tour), using gazillion litres of diesel, and making many happy memories.