Northern Beaches

On Saturday it was off to the Northern Beaches. This area is where we stayed on our very first trip to Australia so it always has a special kind of attraction, plus the beaches are less crowded and have less of a city feel and more of a ‘surfing dude’ type feel to them…..very relaxed way of life, filled with beautiful people.
After a quick visit to a recommended bait and tackle shop in Narrabeen (where Dean and dad armed themselves with frozen prawns and sand worms – for fishing!), our first stop was Avalon for a spot of lunch and a quick look around the town. After feeling some what refuelled, we headed out to Palm Beach with the full intention of doing bugger all and hopefully a spot of fishing to satisfy dad’s hunter tendencies!
Palm Beach was a bit too windy and with a lot of surfers and swimmers would prove to be a bit too problematic for fishing. We decided to drive back down the coast 5 minutes to Whale Beach, which is actually our favourite beach up north. This managed to put big ticks on everyone’s list, lovely beach, great for swimming, rocks to fish and not crowded at all…..perfect!

This was the first opportunity for dad to try his new fishing rod too, but didn’t have too much success – I think he needed a different rod or different bait or different line – I know there was some excuse!!?? The water had been tested though (literally!) and dad gained some useful knowledge chatting to the locals who seemed armed to the teeth with rods and tackle. They also appeared to be having some success catching Atlantic salmon.
We took these photos, intending to use them as Christmas cards this year. But because we were so busy enjoying ourselves, we didn't actually get round to printing them - sorry everyone. But here are the images anyway!

After a lovely relaxing afternoon, we headed back to Avalon for an end of day coffee. It turned out to be a fish and chips trip from a highly recommended ‘chippy’. Yum!!
As a side note…..we just want to add that mum and dad are a jinx when it comes to being served in restaurants!! On this occasion ordering coffee and cake was an hour experience which resulted in luke warm coffee 30 minutes later. To add to this, cake arrived at least 10 minutes after coffee was finished. The start of what was to be the Linda and Chris cafe curse!!
As an extra note, the curse has been lifted now that mum and dad are back in the UK!!