Korora Lookout

Today's adventure included daddy. He was able to come along with us because it is Sunday, a day to be spent enjoying family time.
Ellie got into the swing of the adventure by dressing up as Wonder Woman, wearing a tiara and bringing along a star topped wand and a length of rope.  This supposed 20-30 minute walk from Sealy Road to Korora Lookout was going to take a bit longer than that for us.

Moving at Ellie pace, we left the car park after reading the interpretive sign and climbed down the slate steps to a service road.  The walk is fairly easy going as it is essentially along a service road that has been built to maintain a radio tower.  We will get to the radio tower shortly, but first we had to let all of the other walkers past as we had some serious exploring to do.

The track runs on a ridge above some houses, so you never really feel like you are terribly far from civilisation.  In fact, part of the road seems to double as access to a house as we passed a drive way and letter box.
The walk is made more interesting by the addition of some artistic sculptures created by a local indigenous artist.  There are no interpretive signs accompanying the art, nor a name to let us know who created the pieces.  But, none the less they are very good, particularly the  first one.  It is a vertical piece of wood, carved into wavy patterns, with rusty iron and a lizard.  Because this walk is all about telling the aboriginal dreaming story about the black goanna

The first half of the walk is as much a wander through a natural art gallery as it is a nature walk with tantalising glimpses of sparkling blue ocean.  Just past the half way point we come across the radio tower.  Now this edifice should be an ugly blight on an otherwise beautiful walk. But a fence and the associated buildings have been painted in stunning art work.  The paintings tell some of the story of the black goanna....Ah yes, that WAS what this walk was meant to be all about.  The painting is bright, colourful and very beautiful.

Not long past the radio tower an amazing vista is revealed.  The whole walk reveals small tantalising glimpses, but the real prize is the view from the lookout.  On the edge of the lookout is an attractive wooden platform where you can stand and soak up the gorgeous coastal view. Or you can sit and enjoy the vista in a more relaxed fashion.
Behind the viewing platform is another sitting area, one where you are encouraged to linger and to listen to the story of the black goanna on the message stick.  Here a recorded message tells the dream time story in both gumbangir and English, complete with traditional aboriginal music as its  backing track.
It is well worth a listen.

The way back is just straight back along the track, the way you came......Well for most people, that is.
For us, however, we had Wonder Woman with us. And Wonder Woman hadn't had a chance to use her rope yet.  So at regular intervals we had to stop and connect the rope to a tree  so that our little super hero could 'climb' up the rope to the tree.  When that game wore thin, it was time to tie up daddy and run away.  This second game got us back to the car pretty quickly, as we had to get to the top of the steps before daddy got himself untied.

Having come this far up Sealy Road, we had to go the extra mile, as it were, and visit the amazing Sealy Lookout and Sky Pier.  The Sky Pier affords a terrific view over Coffs Harbour, whilst ever so gently swaying with the movement of the people on it.  We found more interpretive signs and some fabulous areas to have a picnic.  No BBQ's, so definitely bring your own packed lunch for this stop.
Once again, Miss Wonder Woman was in full super hero mode and had to tie up daddy. Once to the Sky Pier itself and once to a big tree in the bottom picnic area.
Then she decided it would be more fun if daddy tied up mummy (this didn't half look totally weird to the other visitors) and then when mummy called out help, Wonder Woman Ellie would come and untie mummy and rescue her.

After all this excitement, spectacular views, cool art works, and escaping from bad guys; it was definitely time to head back down the mountain and home for lunch.  It is always a good idea to bring a stash of gold coins with you so that you can buy bananas and avocados (when in season) from the road side stalls on Bruxner Park Road.  We picked ourselves up a big bag of lady finger bananas for three dollars.

Thursday, Adventure day. Sawtell Lookout

Ellie has decided that she loves to have adventures.  Particularly like the ones that we had on our family trip to Tasmania.  The idea of walking through the bush, exploring the plants and picking flowers is very appealing to her at the moment.

And if walking gets a bit tough and we need help to keep the momentum going, there are plenty of fairy tales that we can adapt into games.

Ellie spends a lot of time on the ipad and has an amazing repertoire of all the traditional fairy tales plus all the modern classics and popular movies and TV shows.  Far from stifling her creativity, the ipad has opened an enormous world of many genres and she spends the majority of her non ipad time immersed in some self concocted fantasy land.  A land inspired and built out of all of the content that she has been consuming.

Today's Adventure was Boambee Headland.  We drove up to the Sawtell lookout and parked our car  at the top.  A bit of inclement weather was rolling in but this did not deter Ellie.  We put on jumpers and walked down the track towards the sea.  As we got to the bottom of the downhill section it started to rain.  I asked Ellie if she wanted to go back to the car.  She said no.  So then I asked her which way she wanted to go: left or right.

She chose right.  So we walked down to the wooden platform above Murray's beach.  Had a photo, and a look at the beach, then turned around and went back the way we came.  Ellie was not interested in exploring beaches today.

We followed the path around the lower edge of the headland.  It is a well defined path built out of sturdy pavers. On either side of the path lots of seaside heath and weed plants were growing. Walking was slow as Ellie explored each different flower and picked a selection from each one that she entrusted to me for safe keeping.  Each park bench we came across we had to sit on in order to power up for the rest of our journey. The rain settled and the sun gradually came out and started to warm us up enough so that we could take off our jumpers.

The view on the sea side was spectacular.  The waves crashing into the craggy rocks and heaving of the sea was glorious to behold.

As we moved around the corner, away from the sea and walked towards the entrance of Boambee creek the vegetation surrounding the track became more dense.  There were less wild flowers to pick, but Ellie's imagination kicked in with games about the big bad wolf waiting in the forest for little red riding hood; and of course, the three Billy Goats Gruff as we crossed a small bridge on our path.

We made it to the lower car park in time to meet a woman walking back the way we had just come.  Ellie, still in full fantasy mode, declared that the woman was a Vampire, ahhhh!

She discovered the cliff faces and immediately wanted to climb them.  There was a small copse of trees that she had to explore, loving the idea of entering the deep dark forest. She dearly wanted to climb the trees but found out that they were covered with green moss and were slippery.  A small pile of sticks heaped up like a campfire inspired her to add more sticks and then try to rub sticks together to make a pretend fire.  We then had to cook sausages and marshmallows using twigs that we had collected.

Once the bitey mosquitoes found us, we decided to leave and climb the road way back to the top of the lookout. Climbing hills on roads made for cars wasn't too much fun until we played Little Red Riding Hood again.  At one stage a man in a car pulled over to see if we were alright.  I guess we looked a bit strange.

At the top of the hill we discovered the two water towers and imagined how much water they would hold and what it would be like to go swimming in one.  We decided that you would have to be a very good swimmer, because the bottom of the tank is a long way down and the water would be very very deep.

All of that adventure made us very hungry, so we set up on a picnic table and ate our lunch.  It must have been lunch time because so many other people drove up in their cars and ate their lunch at the lookout too.

After enjoying the view, and finishing our lunch, we knew it was time to go.

I wonder what our next great adventure will be?

Learning about life as a four year old

Dear Aunty Lola,

After saving her special birthday money in her treasure box for quite a long time, Ellie finally decided that the time had come to spend it.  So, we dressed up, grabbed our handbags and headed off to the shops.

First port of call was the ice cream shop where Ellie bought herself a single cone of rainbow ice cream. YUM.

After enjoying this immensely and, surprisingly, not getting herself in too much of a mess, we then made our way up to Big W.  Once inside, we made a small detour to the jewellery section as Ellie pondered buying some jewels, but then headed on over to the toy section.

Well, there was so much to choose from.  Mummy read out the prices of the things that Ellie could afford.  Ellie spent a sizable amount of time considering her options, but not really sure of anything.  Until…….she spotted the princess tiara.  There was no question then.  Ellie, who absolutely loves dressups, decided that this was the thing that she simply had to buy.

So After popping it on her head and taking a photo of her wearing it (to send to Evan), we decided to buy the crown.  On the way out we spotted some cheerleader pom poms that, luckily, Ellie still had enough money to buy.

It was with great delight that Ellie placed her items on the checkout and then searched in her handbag for her very own money to pay for it with.  And, not only that,she even got a little bit of change from the checkout lady!

This shopping experience was such a delight for Ellie, that she insisted that we had to go shopping again to spend her left over 70 cents.  Hmmmm, where could we go that you could buy something for only 70 cents?

The second hand shop! 

We looked at lots of things that were worth less than a dollar.  Dolls clothes, books, candles and nick nacks.  Again, Ellie just could not decide. 

But then, she spotted the must have item.  A box, shaped like a treasure box.  This she had to have.  Luckily, she had just the right amount of money.

We went up to see the store person and Ellie handed over her 70 cents.  All should have been happy smiles.  Ellie had a beautiful new box and she had got to buy it with her very own money.  But Ellie was NOT happy.  She was angry.  Something was not right with this process.

The shop keeper DID NOT GIVE HER ANY CHANGE!  In Ellie’s mind this was the way things were meant to work.  Fancy not getting any change.

Mummy then had to explain all about how you had to work to earn money to spend.  You couldn’t just have a magical endless supply.  Ellie was still not especially happy about these new facts of life that she was now learning.  Mummy tried to get Ellie to see that if she stayed angry she was not going to enjoy the lovely new thing that she had just purchased.

Eventually, Ellie calmed down and started to think.  Perhaps she would be able to do some jobs for mummy when she got home.  Then she could save up more money.  And what was even better, she now had a lovely new treasure box to put all of her hard earned money into.

So, that is what she did.  For every job that Ellie did, mummy gave her 5cents. When Ellie earned two 5 cents she could swap them for ten cents.  If she earned four 5 cents she could swap them for twenty cents.  Two Twenty cents and a ten cent could be swapped for 50 cents. And two 50 cents could be swapped for a fancy gold coin! Wow!

On Saturday, Ellie found a poor battered 20 cent piece on the drive way.  She happily scooped it up and added it to her growing fortune.

On Sunday, Ellie went to church and missed getting a “bless you” from the priest during communion because she was outside playing.  After Mass she asked the priest for her “bless you”.  She was holding a money box and the priest not only gave Ellie a blessing, but also gave her 50cents for her money box.

Ellie was finding that her money was growing and growing.  Soon she will have enough to go back to the shop and do some more shopping.

Who could have thought that one simple $20 gift could bring so much joy, so many experiences and so many life lessons to one little four year old.

Hope you are well and that you enjoyed reading about Ellie’s adventures.

Lots of love From Emma and Ellie.