Old Dnosauria

Monday, March 21, 2005

Hit the Road Jack

[Travel] Good idea Ray. Canberra isn't everyone's cup of tea all the time. Everyone needs to escape for a bit sooner or later. Good thing it's easy to get out of town when you feel the need.

(Continues with photos...)

There & Back Again - Saturday 5th March:

Snewington & I bus it up to Sydney for a quick daytrip. Spent a couple of hours examining the incredibly intricate work put into the costumes, props and scale models at the Lord of the Rings exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum, had a quick stop for food in Darling Harbour before jumping on a ferry out to Manly to see the ocean again & finished up the day wandering around the city.

Thursday 10th to Monday 14th March:

Mil's wedding in Coffs Harbour. Flew up to Brisbane and drove down to Coffs with Nic. Coffs would be the place to go if you didn't want to do anything but sit on the beach & maybe surf a bit. It's got everything you'd need for a quiet holiday, but there's only one place to go when the sun goes down (if you're after a big night out); The Planto. The Coffs YHA seems to be able to arrange all sorts of activities for it's members if you're up for a more active break. Don't forget that there's one of the nation's oldest big things to see.

I've been going to quite a few weddings lately. If there's one piece of advice I can give to any couples about to tie the knot it's that you should plan out how the ceremony's going to go & then go to the venue & rehearse. The wedding invite told us to go to the Coffs Harbour Jetty, but it didn't tell us whether that involved the beginning, middle or end of it. When your chosen jetty is a bloody long one, you should check it out beforehand, unless you really want the longest bridal march ever. It's a bit of a worry when the groom doesn't know where he's meeting his bride.

All that's forgotten when the bride arrives.

The reception was held in the Coffs Harbour Surf Lifesaving Club and went well (if somewhat quiet - finishing up at 11pm & leaving the younger guests to hit The Planto again).

As is the way with sporting clubs around the country, the walls of the Coffs SLSC are covered in plaques, trophy cabinets and photographs dating back to the club's inception back in the 1930s. You see a lot of the names repeated in the competition and committees boards; there's a strong family connection in the club & several generations of families have run & competed for the club. Looking out over the waves surrounding Little Mutton Bird Island and crashing into each other on Park Beach over breakfast the next day, it occured to me that so many people must've been born into (& died out of) that club & probably never left to explore the world. On the other hand, if you were born in Coffs & had salt water in your veins, why would you leave such a cool piece of the coast?

[Tags: Life, Travel, Sydney, Coffs Harbour, Canberra, Australia]