Thinking Allowed: Posh and pristine

So, to wrap up the Northern Beaches walk. Day 2 ended nicely: Tamar, Aurora, Tova and Zadie showed up in the early afternoon. Sophia was still far from tops, so Aurora and I walked the last few kilometres to Dee Why beach. It took a surprisingly long time, partly because (a) we got coffee at a cafe with a giant Scrabble board on which I made Aurora spell quodliberatians; (b) I was reading this tween book 'The Ruby in the Smoke' aloud the whole time; (c) we hunted unsuccessfully for a geocache on the tip of Long Reef Point, and (d) we got incredibly lost in the Dee Why Lagoon Wildlife Refuge failing to reach another geocache; even though the brush is only 110 metres wide according to Google Maps, we nonetheless managed to spend a full 20 minutes thrashing around in the undergrowth looking for a way out. Aurora fell down and thoroughly scratched her arm and generally enjoyed herself tremendously.

The last day was a mellow walk down increasingly populated beaches. We didn't have many kilometres left, but Tova and Sophia were pretty low-energy so we had more than a couple of rest stops, typically at the bottom and top of the numerous hills we met. I wrapped up a mighty long Moomin story involving a triathlon of stilt-walking, peeing as high as possible and racing ugly cars down steep hills; escaping from a subterranean dragon's labyrinth by chasing it with an evil clown mask; rescuing the rainbow jewel from the sinister wizard with the help of a plucky stone kangaroo, deafeningly loud parrot, basilisk cat and angry cerberus; and returning the jewel (actually the volcano's heart) to the angry volcano (a la LOTR) thus ending the lava flows that threatened the entire fjord.

Tamar jumped onto a bus as soon as we reached Manly to fetch the car, while the girls spent a desultory half-hour in a playground and refused to eat fish 'n chips. Tova slept the entire trip home, and only woke up at 8PM so she could go to the emergency room with stomach pains that turned out to not be appendicitis. This was a fitting start to the week of sick kids we have since savoured.

Given that this trip was kinda doomed from the start, we had a remarkably good time. Sophia had early-onset flu for all three days; Tova had it for the last day; and I had back issues throughout, yet we all came away with good memories and a sense of achievement. The final tally was:

Tamar: 40 km (of 40)

Aurora: 40 km

Tova: 35 km

Jakob: 30 km

Sophie: 25 km

Zadie: 35 km (riding patiently on Tamar's back)

Three reflections. First, we feel both proud and slightly ashamed that we made our children walk until they succumbed to disease...somehow we seem to be excessively lax and harsh parents at the same time. Second, Australia wins again - it is unbelievable that we could walk across 14 peaceful and happy beaches, each and every one a beauty, just outside a city of 2 million people. No other country in the world has this. Third, Tamar wins a medal for making this happen; it's really easy with chronic back pain to rule things out as too risky or hard, but at the end of the day we tend not to regret these sprees, and Tamar is so good at thinking outside the box to find ways for us to have adventures.

Next up is Western Australia, which we'll explore over the school holidays in a few weeks' time. As a reward for anyone who's actually read this far, Aurora figured out how to generate 15-letter anagrams using Ulu, and riddled me this one: CEEEEHHNOPRRTTW. Kind of an obscure word but you'll know it when you see it.