This summer we decided to try something a bit different. We went to a highly recommended YHA (youth hostel) in Pittwater which is located in the southern part of Ku-Ring-Gai National Park in North Sydney. The YHA is accessible by ferry which was a huge hit with the kids. Then it’s a bit of a hike uphill to the YHA (not such a huge hit with the kids or us adults for that matter!). But the trek uphill was worth it as the views from the top of the hill were gorgeous. And we were in such a remote area surrounded by giant gum trees that you forgot you were so near Sydney! We spent 2 nights in a family room which was lovely and slept us four just fine. The boys slept in top bunks (of course they had to be the same – luckily there were 2 sets of bunk beds!). While we were there, we enjoyed watching all the wildlife – tons of wallabies munching on grass at dusk, unusual gigantic ants, spiders, a possum, and what we think was a bandicoot.
Tomas even met a friend which was great, another 5 year old girl who he played with for the first 2 days. She was there to celebrate Tomas’ 5th birthday with us which was nice. I think it was rather special for Tomas to be with this small community group on his birthday because usually it’s just mum, dad, Ethan and him. Instead we had the YHA directors (Micheal and Sarah who are lovely) and a few other of the visitors join us in singing Tomas Happy Birthday! I even brought along 2 cupcakes (one for him and one for Ethan, although in retrospect, I should have taken a cake!)
On our second night, Mike and I had an unwated guest in our room – yes, a huge huntsman spider! We had just fallen asleep when Mike woke me and calmly said,”there’s a spider on the wall beside me, better get out of bed”. Well, the so called spider was only a couple feet from Mike’s head! And as soon as we moved, it moved! We opened the doors (as there were 2) to get some light in and were fratic about how to get this thing out of our room without waking the kids! So Mike went to get a bowl or something to catch it in and left ME with IT! We had a face off and I started shinning the flashlight in its eyes to get it to move towards one of the doors. The spider responded and started moving slowly, then quickly towards the door so very near Tomas’ head! I was having a heart attack when Mike returned with a broom to finish guiding our guest out. It worked! And the kids slept on! What a feat!
A highlight of our trip was taking the kids on their first kayaking trip – yes all 4 of us were in the boat together (the photo only shows us departing before Mike hopped in the back). We did a short trip to a mangrove where we got out and inspected small crabs that hid in the sand when they saw you coming. It was fun to run up and down the sand and watch the crabs retreat. Unfortunately we did not brave taking our phones on this journey so we have no photos of this fun adventure!
Of course, the kids perferred swimming to doing anything else so they did plenty of that and on the last day had an extra treat when the dock to catch the ferry home was covered in about a foot of water as it was high tide – it made for some great splashing fun! The ferry ride itself was an adventure as there were numerous jelly fish in the water- two different species, one of which we had only see once before. It was quite a sight.
all in all a great trip!
