Airey Aussie Christmas

Australian summer is filled with dazzling light. It's the kind of pure, radiant light that comes from a really blue sky, with every surface glinting and reflecting. This was our Christmas, and we felt quite lucky.

Christmas was in Tathra, a small town by the sea. We picked up our good friend George and the festivities and beer drinking began. Christmas Eve was spent in the local pub, nothing too different there. Christmas morning started with opening presents, eating chocolate and drinking bucks fizz, pretty normal. But then we togged up, and headed to the beach to play in the waves in our Santa hats. Lathering up with factor 30 on Christmas Day is a completely new experience, but a happy one.

For lunch it was a Christmas BBQ extravaganza, complete with turkey kebabs, turkey burgers, huge king prawns, stuffing balls, roast potatoes, pasta salad and more. We were stuffed, Christmas Day stuffed. And so we snoozed, a Christmas Day snooze.

Then it was back to the beach for cricket, to the pool for a swim and to the jacuzzi for some more bubbly. Christmas bliss!

Boxing Day was much the same, and a chance to walk off some of the BBQ indulgence in the sunshine. We then headed to Jervis Bay, gateway to the Boogeree National Park. Our house backed right onto a golf course, which was filled with roos and so we had plenty of evening entertainment, and choruses of "Skippy, Skippy, Skippy the bush kangaroo!"

We spent a few days exploring the area, snorkeling and swimming off white sandy beaches. Jervis Bay is reputed to have the clearest waters and whitest sands, not only in Australia, but the world. And it must be true: the beach here was like walking on warm snow, which blinded us in the sunshine. On our last day, a pod of dolphins came to the snow-like shore where we sat and they raced around in the surf.

It was the perfect end to our wildlife spotting and to our roadtrip; we were heading Sydney, our final stop.