Time for fishing! Snookums and I joined his Pop for a day out on the tinny on the Nambucca River.

As the Princess (without a fishing license), my job was to sit in the middle of the boat and read my book. Here’s my view as Snookums pushes us off the bank.

Behind me, Captain Pup manned the engine.

Snookums took this one of me huddling in the boat as we zoomed around the river.

We came across some abandoned oyster racks at lunchtime and stopped to investigate. Pup showed me the proper way to shuck a natural oyster straight from the river.

My turn!

A little gritty… but delicious!

Suddenly the skies opened and it began to rain. We donned our jackets and headed back towards the boat ramp.

We got SOAKED. It was pretty miserable. Ma Snook had hot tea and scones waiting for us back at the house though, which made it all worthwhile.

Christmas Lunch, Australian style. It was too hot to have anything warm. We had fresh tomatoes and crackers and dips and cheese and fruit and nuts. Oh, and wine. It was lovely.

For Boxing Day, Ma and Pa Snook took us on the long drive out into the bush to the Pub With No Beer, which was made famous by the Slim Dusty song. Other than us and one or two other obviously tourist families, the clientele was pretty rough: mostly locals and dirt-bikers. It was very ocker. We had lunch and sampled some of the beers that are brewed there. (Note to self: Next time climb up on the giant log BEFORE you drink the beer.)

Here we are on the verandah.

Finally it was time to drive home. We knew the post-Christmas traffic was going to be formidable. We missed lunch and pulled into the first truck stop we came to. Hey, it’s Leyland Brothers World! I always wanted to pose in front of a giant fake Uluru that looks like it’s made out of paper-maché.

The signs on the bathroom doors were pretty cute though. (I don’t think I’ve ever seen anthropomorphic USA’s back in the States.)

Eventually we cleared the traffic and made it home to Sydney. I felt pretty sorry for the poor buggers going north though. They were backed up for miles! Moral of the story: Don’t try to leave Sydney between Christmas and New Year’s.

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