Sleep-ins and Lazy days....

Woke up this morning to the sound of very light rain on the roof of the van.  Such a lovely sound, the night had been cold so to be snuggled up in bed and listening to the rain was just too good to get up for so we all slept in until nearly 9am.  Up and a lazy breakfast and then the kids took the camera down to the front beach.  They had a great time photographing the pelicans and managed to get some great shots too, these are a sample of their work (there was over 100 photos that they had taken) ...

Packed some lunch and off we went to Elliston for the day, thought we'd take our time and check out all the little roads and beaches along the way.

Pulled into Tahli, there are caves and a beach here and the signs say the caves are geologically impressive...  They were pretty impressive I've got to say.  This one is called Woolshed Cave.  You can walk a fair way in, the path is steep and fairly crumbly and there was a big bee hive on the roof. 

Moved on around further to the Tub, you'll see why its called that in a sec.

Its like a massive sink hole - very impressive.

Once we got to Elliston we took a drive out around the cliffs they have various sculptures dotted along the headland..

The view driving around the cliff face was lovely too.  We stopped at one of the surf breaks and watched a couple of guys surfing.  One guy came off pretty bad and we watched him paddle in - seems like a long paddle out.  The waters here are supposed to be very sharky.  I did see something in the water - not sure if it was a shark or not though.

Headed into Elliston and bought some hot chips to have with our lunch.  The lady who served us grew up in West Pennant Hills.  Its funny where people end up.  Elliston is so tiny and consists of a general store, a pub and a cafe and 2 caravan parks.  We were all very excited we found something resembling grass to sit on for our picnic.  I say resembling as it was mostly full of weeds and very course but the closest we have come to grass for a very long time.  I am really looking forward to walking around barefoot in my backyard and feeling the grass when we get home, its been gravel or shell grit for nearly 2 months now.

Headed back to camp after lunch and Dave decided to pull in and do a spot of 4WDing down to another beach that he had been told about.  The track was very rocky and lots of bushes on either side of the road and down the middle - doesn't look like it gets used very often.  The poor old x-trail handled it all very well, the kids asked for no more dirt roads at the end of it all but though Dave was very brave.

Its been nice to take a slower pace today however we are heading off again in the morning.  There really isn't much to do here - unless your a fisherman or have a boat.  We looked at buying fishing rods (we have them at home just didn't bring them with us) and the cheapest is $110, we would need more than one and then all the bits that go with them so just not worth it for the amount of time we have left here.  People are catching great fish though just off the jetty. 

We have mostly packed everything up this afternoon and are planning on an early get away in the morning (no sleeping in tomorrow) and are hoping to make it all the way to Broken Hill - nearly 800kms - that's a big days driving even for us at the moment.  As per usual we have backup plans - stay at Port Augustra or free camp between Port Augusta and Broken Hill.  Looking forward to some "hot" weather - the breeze here is straight off the southern ocean so its a bit chilly.

Think we're all at the point now of  looking forward to being home in a few days although we just checked the weather in Sydney and it doesn't look so great so perhaps we will delay our return a bit longer....