Jervis Bay, NSW
House sit number 1 is in the Jervis Bay area, South Cast, NSW. We haven’t been house sitting for close on 2 years because of covid, so we are feeling a little bit nervous. We were in such a good rhythm before the world turned upside down. We needn’t have been! There are some beautiful people in this world and we are so lucky to be meeting so many of them.
But the weather has turned on us, rain forecast for the next week or more, oh well, we have a beautiful home to stay in and there is always Netflix!
We settle in and create our routine, but we really want to get out to explore the coastline here, we have heard it is beautiful. Two days in, we decide to just do what we do – too bad if its not sunny and hot. We mark off a couple of beaches on the map, pack a picnic and off we go. We head toward Murrays Beach as it is the furthest away so we will start there and work our way back. Woops, we find ourselves in a line of cars with no way to turn around. And why are they taking so long! As we sit and wait, trying to be patient, we try to figure out by google maps what we have actually come across. Is this the military base? Or it could be a National Park? Its not that clear on Maps. We finally get up to the kiosk and yes, this is the entrance to the Booderee National Park, who knew! Fee of $14 for a 48 hour pass. And we find out why the line took so long, the lovely lady just wanted to have a chat – with everybody! She was so nice you just couldn’t help engaging in her chit chat. So after understanding her whole family dynamics, off we go, Murrays Beach here we come.
The day is still not very nice but we have our picnic on the beach and Chris has a swim, its too cold for me. We get back into the truck and head for the historic lighthouse, Cape St George Lighthouse. This is a ruin and quite lovely. Sad story about it though. It was erected in 1860 a spot that was easy to build, ie transport the sandstone etc in, but it wasn’t in the best spot for the job it was intended to do – be a lighthouse. Being in a poor position, it didn’t halt the shipping toll and was replaced by Point Perpendicular Lighthouse in 1898, which was built on the opposite side of the entrance to the bay. The lighthouse tower was then torn down in early 20th century as the sandstone it was constructed with was too bright at night and was distracting to shipping. There were many deaths among the around 15 people living there during its short life span, mostly children. From Typhus and Pleurisy to falling over the cliffs, being kicked in the head by a horse and being shot by mistake by a teenager playing around with a loaded gun. Quite sad, but probably quite typical for the time.
We had 14 days here and it rained for the first 10 days. We still got out a few times and discovered some stunning beaches along this coast, all within 20 minutes of the house sit. We completed quite a bit of the White Sands Walk, from Nelsons Beach to Hyams Beach. We fell in love with Huskisson, and spent a bit of time in the local pub there – well it WAS raining!
We had a stunning house and two beautiful, affectionate cats to care for, life is good. There is a field across the road from the house and there are kangaroos grazing there every morning. In the evening they sometimes come right up to the road, it is so exciting to see them. One day there was a Mum with a baby and they turned and jumped right down the street, it was so funny – love Australia!
Our lovely home owners returned and we a had another great night together, catching up on the previous 2 weeks, then back into FatBoy to hit the road again.
We head back to Sydney to celebrate Australia Day with a group of English, Welsh, American, Dutch, Slovakian, Kiwis and even a couple of Aussies – How about that!
Thank you for reading our story!
Kiwis Do Fly 