Private cheese tasting

On our way to Gloucester we passed by the New England Cheese dairy. The gates were shut but after a brief phone call we were allowed to go for a taste. We were all quite excited to be out of the rain and next to a warm fire to taste some dairy products. What made it even better was that the proprietors were really nice and interesting, and their products were really top notch. We ended up trying and buying a bunch of goodies. We even got a tour of the milking operation, including patting the dogs.

Cow lunch

It was a rainy day so we pulled over near a paddock and had a nice lunch with some cows in Grafton. They were very curious, and that in turn made us curious. SV was fascinated and wanted to feed them her food. One of the cows tried it and eventually ate part of her lunch. It was pretty funny how they all came over to see what was happening.

SV drives to Byron Bay

If SV was a teenager this would be a terrifying statement due to the reputation that Byron has. This time it was fine though because we were with her and could supervise her behaviour. She had a lot of fun driving and then running around the lighthouse. She didn't love the wind though.

Christmas dinner

We had a lovely spread for dinner including Aussie classics like prawns, steak and salad. Some of us had roasted potatoes while others (SV) didn't. A great end to a nice day.

Beach time

There are not many countries where you can go to the beach comfortably at christmas. Luckily Australia is one of them and we certainly made the most of it. What a good beach day too, good weather, warm water and not too many people.

Christmas morning

We got up at a reasonable time and SV was quite excited. So we let her open her stocking which she enjoyed immensely. She got straight to work. After breaky we opened more of the gifts which were very generous. The stand out though for SV was the pink T Rex which she got.

Ballina pool

KT, SV and Jonathan went for a dip in the pool which was literally next to our camp site. SV wasn't too impressed with how cold the pool was and it took some persuading to get her to get in and swim around a bit. She had fun once she got in, but her lips turned blue and her teeth chattered fairly soon.