Around Australia with the Ralphs 1990 - Merry Beach NSW 4th-10th January

Lunch was a little late when we ate at the Wollongong Pizza Hut - a trend, I don't think we can financially afford to continue - at around 3:00 PM. But the kids enjoyed it even though they had been eating lollies almost continuously for the last three hours.

The drive south was pleasant; green countryside and silence from passengers who finally went to sleep for a few hours. The Princes Highway became worse the further South we travelled [2020 note - not much has changed]. One good thing was that there were relatively few trucks on the road with CB radio chatter non-existent. Looking for a flexi-teller in Ulladulla involved 2 U-turns in the Main Street - quite an achievement towing the van. There are no flexi-tellers in Ulladulla!

The last half hour to Merry Beach involved answering the same question from the same people at least 30 times a minute - how long to go?? It was just as well we arrived when we did as the office was closing - it was 6:30 pm - and they have card operated boom gates to control traffic flow. We were allocated our site about 3 roads from the beach surrounded by permanent on-site vans.

Merry Beach was a very busy camping area, or transfixed suburbia, with the vast majority of sites occupied by permanent caravans with aluminium annexes, brick barbecues and paved areas. The residents spend every holiday in their vans and even bring chainsaws to make the task of preparing firewood as painless as possible. After all they need to get stuck into a tinny or two while the steak and onions are cooking .

The least popular residents were the two blokes who owned tractors with which to drag their aluminium boats across the sand when they went fishing at 5am each morning. We didn't take an alarm clock, but the chug chug chug of the tractors was enough.

Putting up the van and annex wasn't too much of a trauma considering our short tempers. We did have a problem with the power board: there are only three outlets and all three were in use. I asked an onsite van owner if he could unplug his cord as he was across the road. He responded that he'd been coming here for years and always used this box. But he did switch and we had power.

After dinner of ham and eggs we went to watch a concert and got to bed late - around 10:30 to 11:00PM. During the concert Jive House played. This band had an excellent female lead singer who sang many Eurythmics, Pretenders and Divinyls songs. At the concert we met up with Trevor and Lynn Schwab [Trevor is an ex-colleague of Ian's who taught at Narrabeen Boys High School while Ian was a student there and taught with Ian when he was teaching at Cromer High School between 1976 and 1981]. Trevor is also a very keen spearfisherman - more on that later.

Friday the 5th of January 1990.

Our first whole day at leisure was a great day - slightly overcast with sunny periods and a pleasant NE wind.

First things first - a fishing trip with the kids to the Kioloa boat ramp. First throw saw Lachlan catch a small eel which was a source of much satisfaction and cries of delight from the kids all round. I spent so much time rejigging Lachlan’s line that I only managed one rod, but it was enough to catch a toad and an edible rainbow parrot fish.

Anja and Rohan playing at Merry Beach - and our never ending battle to keep the kids' hats on

Trevor met us soon after our return and we decided to go spearfishing. Lachlan stayed with Lynn and Jacqui, who, along with Anja and Rohan, headed off Ulladulla for money and supplies. Jacqui tells me that the traffic in Ulladulla was horrific - full of tourists. It took ages to buy the groceries vegetables and go to the bank and post office. Jacqui said she was glad to return to Merry beach!

Before we left on this trip, in an orgy of consumerism, I had bought a complete set of spearfishing equipment. Trevor was an excellent, patient teacher [about how to use this new equipment], passing on knowledge and skills acquired over many years. Without his help we wouldn't have eaten fish and abalone as often as we did during the weeks to come.

Trevor was a great help organising and rigging my gun and spent quite some time telling me how to get in, get out, get fish, get them off the spear etc. The visibility [in the water] wasn't the best but we still managed to catch leather jackets. I speared the first fish, which was pointed out by Trevor, without firing just prodding. We also speared Tasmanian trumpeters and coral trout. The short sea breeze chop meant the water slopped into my snorkel and I breathed quite a lot of the Tasman sea during the hour or so we were in. I enjoyed the experience and look forward to doing much more.

We filleted and skinned the fish on the rocks and after packing gear away headed to the Australia National University research station near Kioloa. There they had a science lab setup with excellent binocular microscopes and an old house organised as a museum.

I found a map showing the path taken by Captain Cook on his way up the coast. Most interesting!

It looked like this:

Jacqui returned from her shopping trip just after us and we sat around in the van drinking champagne and wine with Trevor and Lynn before dinner. The fish was excellent and much more tasty than commercial fish - what else would you expect?

Saturday 6th January 1990

Just after 7:00AM Trevor collected me and we went diving again. I managed to spear a groper which is a protected species however I didn't know what a groper looked like (yes, I know ignorance of the law is no excuse} and a small red mowong and a leather jacket or two.

The groper must have known it was protected as it unscrewed the prongs from my spear just as I was putting it on my float. Fortunately the bottom was clean rock about 25 feet down and my prongs were new and shiny so I spotted them. The dive was at my limit and the ascent was as fast as I could go. Cleaning the fish on the rocks was a hurried affair with constant backward glances looking out for fishing inspectors. Forbidden fruit tastes best they say and this was true for the groper which was delicious. In fact it fed the whole family.

While cleaning the fish Trevor picked up a fisheye and dissected out the lens to show Lachlan. The way the fish are strung on the float line means that the eyes tend to fall out. Trevor told how when cleaning fish and lots of little kids crowd around he sometimes would pass around some eyes amongst the kids and tell them that they must put them under their pillows overnight!

The afternoon was spent paddling in the water, kids having a ball and getting very wet and visiting the ANU station again so that Jacqui could see it. The museum had an ice cream box made of wood and metal. It must have been such a hassle - firstly getting ice and secondly checking that the water in the shallow tray at the bottom didn't overflow.

We missed the local Kioloa fair. The latter caused a tearful response from the ankle-biters. This however was pacified by the purchase of chocolate covered ice creams from the local Mr whippy who, thankfully, was visiting the camping ground when we returned.

Before dinner we walked over to Murramarang National park to feed many tame Kangaroos in the bush.

Sunday 7th January 1990

Another early dive with Trevor only this time we went into the water off the rocks on the other side of the Bay. He showed me how to find lobsters in a crack in the rock. The first time he reached in [to the crack] he broke open a sea urchin which attracted a big eel that needed to be encouraged to leave before said crays could be extracted.

While Trevor was collecting crays I stumbled on an empty abandoned cray pot which surprisingly had a cray in it! As I had no glove Trevor was able to extract it. This day I managed to spear two fish which, when added to the two leather jackets from the day before, meant we had another good meal at night. In fact I shot at some nice bream, blackfish and red mowong but only succeeded in bruising the rocks on the bottom and bending the prongs on my spear.

Getting out on the rocks was difficult but I was fortunate that it was relatively calm when I emerged. Watching the same spot shortly after climbing ashore, I decided I was very lucky as the waves were much bigger and would have made escape from the water much more difficult.

Trevor had a set of vernier calliper to check [the lenght of] his crays and was dismayed to find that only one of the five were legal. We left the other four in case of interception by fisheries inspectors. Later that day Trevor and Lyn returned, and Lyn walked back to camp with two of the four crays in her back pack - the other two crays were nowhere to be found.

Returning to camp by 9:20AM we all went on a walk looking at birds it was organised by the people from the ANU station.

We didn't see many birds but there were thousands of flies which hitch hiked on our backs.

Lachlan being a typical big brother!

We spoke to a family from Liverpool who had bought 2 acres nearby and were planning to build a house in the near future and moved from Sydney.

I slept for a few hours in the afternoon while Jacqui and the kids walked to the local shop and spent some time at the beach. Emerging into the open air sleepy eyed I met Trevor who said he had seen a friend of his who had said that "as we only had six months to go we had better get stuck into it.” I've no idea what he meant - sleeping in the afternoon seems like an appropriate activity.

Showers - some quite heavy - kept us in the van after dinner, but pleasingly no leaks were discovered which means we can feel secure in the rain. Keeping the kids amused and out of each other’s hair may be another matter!

Monday 8th January 1990

Rain, light and heavy, but almost continuous dominated this day. A high-pressure system situated over the South Tasman sea is directing winds onto the coast, bringing with them moisture which is falling on us!

Not much happened this morning. I woke at 7:00 AM, walked along the beach looking half-heartedly for pippies but found none. The tide's too high and I didn't want to get wet.

We potted-about and the kids walked to the rocks looking for and finding some crabs which they carried around until late in the afternoon.

An early lunch and we were all off to Ulladulla where we shopped with the hordes of bored campers who had the same idea. I looked for a thin pair of booties to stop my feet from being relentlessly eroded by my new fins. No luck however, they were either too small or too thick.

Strangely the local version of Grace Brothers [a department store] was sold out of umbrellas!

Despite light rain the kids rode around and burnt off excess energy while we cooked dinner. Nutmeat spaghetti : no fish today.

In raincoats we all walked up the track, except for Lachlan who rode, to see more Kangaroos but [we saw none as] they have more sense than to be walking around the bush on a day like this!

Lachlan put his BMX bike to the test jumping over roots and skidding in soft wet sand along the track. The kids all hopped around like Kangaroos and we managed to offload the bread roll taken to feed the Kangaroos.

When we got back Jacqui and I spent about 2 minutes trying to learn Tallis’ cannon on recorder but the kids didn't think we should have any time to ourselves.

Lachlan played ludo with Jacqui while I amused Anja and Rohan with a game of snap. Jacqui won the first game and offered to play Lachlan in the game with only a single marker. Chance would have it that Jacqui won. Boy did Lachlan crack up, throwing the game around the room and generally chucking a mental. Even a demonstration of the random nature of throwing a die didn't help. In fact, the only way we could quieten him was for me to lose to him in a game of snap.

Finally, a comment from a 12 year old neighbour is worth recording: the weather was great until the night of the concert and then it turned rotten. We arrived the night of the concert!! [Edit 2020 – in fact Sydney recorded its highest ever rainfall total on 3rd February 1990. We were very lucky to be heading south at that time in 1990].

Tuesday 9th January 1990

Rain, rain and more rain! Kept indoors for most of the day we resorted to desperate measures to amuse the kids, in fact we started Lachlan’s lesson from the correspondence school. Snap and other games including do the washing and waiting for a dryer were also the order of the day.

There was one small problem with water coming through the canvas at the front end of our bed Jacqui said it was all my fault as it couldn't have happened if I wasn't so tall! Jacqui said she threatened to chop off my feet :)

After lunch, during a brief break in the rain, we all walked to the nearest shop to post a letter. As these things go we bought some postcards but didn't post anything. Anyway, it was raining again!

Into the car to find the post office we ended up dropping Jacqui off at Bawley point to have a haircut at “Short and Curlies”.

Meanwhile the kids and I drove around looking, still, for a place to post Lachlan's letter to Owie and Georgie (see below). Eventually we found one [a post box] cunningly concealed in a small general store.

Having bought a diving glove I decided a last dive at Merry Beach was called for. With Trevor minding Lachlan I slipped into the water at about 4:30 PM. Few fish were prepared to face me in the bubbly, murky water but I got a red mowong and a black reef fish. As I pulled in the second fish, in about 10 to 15 feet of water, the buckle on my weight belt was bumped and down my weight belt went. Although the water wasn't too deep, diving into that depth in a buoyant wetsuit was exhausting. With my last grasp I grabbed the belt and rocketed of the surface. Gasping I managed to put the belt on - just as well as I couldn't have done it again.

Trevor and Lyn visited, and I soaked fish in lemon sauce, sashimi style. Very nice – plain or dipped in soy sauce.

We all, including a few kids from around the local vans, watched some of Trevor's videos on his AC/DC TV as well as some we had taken on our Sony portable video camera.

Dinner was late and we finally got the kids to bed at around 10:30 PM. I wonder how they'll like being woken early to pack?

Wednesday 10th January 1990

After 6 days at Merry Beach we decided to head south with no firm idea of where we were going. A strange feeling, but something we would get used to.

The day started at around 7:00AM with breakfast of toast weetbix or is it vitabrits - I can never remember - with the constant drip, drip, drip of water from the trees. Fortunately, it wasn't actively raining although everyone and everything was wet, wet, wet!

3 hours and 10 minutes later we were poking our card into the Cincinnati gate for the last time at Merry Beach, having been farewelled by Trevor and Lynn and the kids and their parents next door. When we went to return the plastic ticket for the Cincinnati gate, the man at the office said that we should have left on the 9th and that we owed for an extra day. After a bit of unpleasant hassling they didn't charge for the day but it put a pall over Merry Beach. [The confusion over our departure dates may have arisen because we left for our trip 1 day later than planned and the message may not have made it through to the caravan park's operator]