Author Archives: stuart

Cowwarr Weir

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19 December we went with the following families: White, Lewis, Elliman, Bryant and Black. The girls swam even though it was not overly hot. Maggie won an inflatable shark in the random KK draw and thought it was the best thing ever. I would have loved to have had a chance to catch up with everyone moreso but I was supervising her in the water the entire time!

7 January we went with Ben and Olive. It was colder than forecast and around 22. The water at the Weir is not as cold as one might think. The highlight was Maggie and Olive putting their head underwater and saying what they could see (big fish, lobsters, etc)

23 January we went again when it was really hot, Gaga came with us which was nice. We used, for the first time, the awning I had bought years ago. It was very crowded, but with the awning we were able to have shade, and of course the Weir is very big.

Walks in Panton Hill

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Across the lockdown of 2020 I wanted to keep Maggie interested in the outdoors. I used Google maps to find an interesting bit of land in Panton Hill. Depending on the lockdown restrictons – we weren’t always allowed there. But she really loved to bring a picnic and, as always, used her imagination to make it all a lot of fun. She now refers to the area as “bushwalks”.

On the trail
Enjoying a picnic

Last Breach Trip Before Lockdown

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It was obvious that in the covid-19 world soon a lot of activities that we took for granted would be finished. We drove down to Sale to see the Grandparents for what seemed to be the last time in a while. We made sure we got a trip to the beach in.

It was a lovely day and the wind was minimal, which is saying something for Seaspray.

Maggie had a lot of fun playing in the sand, I taught her protect the stick and she mostly enjoyed running back and forth in the waves and screaming.

Claire (pregnant) mostly lay on the picnic rug with Gaga. Pa and myself splashed around with Maggie and it was a really nice day all around.

 

You can tell Claire took this photo because the horizon isn’t level

Long weekend in Phillip Island

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Myself, Claire, Maggie, Jenny and Dean went down to Phillip Island for the long weekend. Not exactly the sort of camping and boating fun that I usually like to write about, but it was still a good trip outdoors and quite managable with Maggie from a rented house. Brad, Ains, Maddie & Isla went down too and of course Maggie loved being around Maddie and Isla.

Friday was very hot and Maggie and I spent most of the time in the water or playing on the beach. The 36 degree weather was too much for the others.

 

Saturday the cool change had come through and it was raining on and off. We went for a walk along a beach to some caves and Maggie thought it was the best thing ever. She still sings “beach patrol” to the theme of paw patrol. Watching her partipate in it with Maddie and Isla was a lot of fun.

The rest of Saturday was raining but the house was well set up for it and the girls had a lot of fun. We ordered Chinese and Maggie enjoyed her giant bowl of steamed rice. She asked Claire (while sitting around a noisy table of 9) “Mummy, who do I speak to?”

Sunday was the trip back and Brad and I played some mini golf of a terribly run down course while the girls and Dean went to a wildlife park.

Fishing with Judda around Hammo

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I was very fortunate when I was up there that Judda (and Andy and Reef) were able to take the boat into the Hamilton Island Marina and pick me up.

We started some drifting but we were getting absolutely nothing. So we tried to trawl for some mackerel and Judda picked up a 1m long barracuta. Not the best start. I then managed to get a 43cm Coral Trout, which was very nice, and quite surprising on the trawl.

We drifted quite a bit more and were successful in getting a lot of small nannygai, nothing that we could keep. Reef managed to pull up two very nice Grunter (Javelin Fish).

In our last spot we once again managed to hit the small stuff.

Not the best days fishing, but it certainly wasn’t the worst. Just great to get back out there.