Kangaroo valley and etc.

Last weekend we headed south to Kangaroo Valley - no kangaroos spotted, but some wallabies, a wombat, and the farm had llamas, goats, cows (holsteins - made us feel right at home), and lots of birds - kookaburras, another bird I refer to as the 'car alarm bird', etc. On the way, along a twisting country road we ran across a fudge shop which is basically a refrigerator sitting on the end of the driveway with a cashbox in it (see picture) - we got some fudge, rocky road (which is different over here - has 'jellies' and lots of marshmallow in it), turkish delight (which is really big as well), and some other treats. Suitably fortified (especially John) we continued our journey. The girls spent Saturday on the farmstay and went to the Kangaroo Valley 'show' which is basically the county fair - saw the animals being judged, went on some rides, had some fair food (which, predictably, was fair), etc. Kate and Tess had fun playing with some other kids that were staying on the farm, particularly going on the rope swing down at the creek. John spent 24h in Wollongong on the helicopter and got two flights in, both of which went along the coast at relatively low altitude - which was incredible, waterfalls, beautiful beaches and water, hangliders, the sort of flight you'd pay a lot of money to go on if you weren't taking care of a patient... We intubated a patient at night on a golf course a few days ago, which was good experience - learning the differences between in-hospital and helicopter medicine - also finding you run out of pockets on your flight suit fast, and have to keep everything as packaged as possible during the job, as nothing can be loose in flight - makes things interesting!

John had the past three days off, which was novel - so took a surfing lesson each day - Day 1 things went very well and he was really feeling good about the sport and 'ripping it', then came Day 2 and Day 3 with a smaller board and a larger amount of humility - though still catching some waves well and having a lot of fun. Tess is really enjoying surfing and Kate wants to learn. Our neighbor Adam has offered us his old (and large) board to use while we are here, which is awesome, so we'll be trying that out this weekend hopefully. Note there are no pictures thus far of John surfing - likely to stay that way for awhile...

The weather has become more sunny the past week, so we've been out and around more - went to a playpark on Darling Harbor and had dinner at 'Pancakes on the Rocks' which purports to serve dinner, but dinner consisted (for John, as an example) of chocolate pancakes served with orange slices soaked in Grand Marnier, vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce. Tess wants to go back and try every menu item....I don't believe they have a dessert menu, if there was, we didn't see it - even bypassed the fudge store on the way home, which is remarkable...