River Ramble

This weekend our plan was to take it easy on Saturday and then have a nice long outdoorsy day on Sunday. Our relaxed day around town turned into renting a car, going to a farmers market, driving 45 minutes away to the hills to see the Canberra deep space communication center (Aurora really likes space), going to the indoor rock climbing gym, doing groceries for the week, and then spending the evening at the Nara candle festival. While it was a really fun day, as you can imagine, by the end of Saturday we were by no means feeling rested.

Usually our big hikes tend to be mountains. We like going uphill, we like the view, we like the effort. By 'we' I mean the adults in the family. So for Sunday we had planned to climb a peak we had drooled over at our last visit to the Australian Alps.  Luckily, right now Aurora is fascinated by mount Everest and so is unusually happy with mountain climbs. Sophia, while she usually agrees with Aurora, has decided that maybe she doesn't like mountains much after all. Or she likes mountains but not if they are too big.

Sophia climbed a really big mountain last weekend and she has a lingering cold from her brief excursion into winter. So, I decided to respect her opinions and diversify our tastes and chose a nice river walk. Sophia very soon into our hike decided maybe she doesn't like rivers either. Sophia and Tova began a whining competition, the Murrumbidgee river burbled loudly, and the grassy banks led to eruptions of sneezing from Jakob. It was all nearly as exciting as a frat party. Well maybe more exciting but just as loud. Even the wombat holes and kangaroo sighting couldn't break down the wall of whining. So after walking a very loud 4.5 kms Sophia happily hopped into the ergo on my back and very quickly feel asleep only to awake when we reached the idyllic river beach.

Communicating with deep space

River people