Ian and I are now the proud holders of New South Wales boating licences. We passed the theory test a few weeks ago but could not obtain our full licences until we had been out on the water on three occasions demonstrating our skills, or lack of them, to an experienced skipper. 
A friend and her husband who both meet the criteria bravely volunteered to take on this task, but the weather has not been kind from a boating point of view. We have had fine, sunny days but it has been quite windy so our trips on the water were quite choppy affairs. Although we are in a bay, it is bigger than Sydney Harbour so can get a bit of a chop up when it is blowy and after a few days of chickening out, we decided we had to go for it or we would not have our licences in time for Eddie and Archie's visit next month.
One of the more scary thing you are required to prove you can do is taking the boat 'over the plane'. This is revving really high so the boat rears up but then settles to aquaplaning across the waves. Non licence holders are not allowed to do this as they have to keep under 10 knots at all times, so the first time you brave it is under the watching eye of your assessor and it is doubly terrifying if the water is a bit rough. However, like most things, the first time is the worst and it was all plain sailing after that and we were fully signed off and picked up our licences at the end of last week.
It is pretty windy still so we decided to go over to Nelson Bay today to check out a historical walk we thought our forthcoming visitors might enjoy. After stopping to marvel at the 24 hour live bait vending machine, we picked up the brochure from the visitors centre and went in search of the numbered posts in the guide. Well it was a lovely walk but, of the twenty odd information posts promised, only one was still standing. Once we realised this was the case, we worked out where each one should be and read the guide to see what was there only to find that every stopping place, whether it was a fisherman's cottage, boat jetty, ocean swimming pool, first church in the bay, first post office etc, etc had all either been washed out to sea, destroyed by the elements or knocked down to make way for the new marina in 1987. We will be complaining, especially as we had to pay for the guide book. 
It was a fabulous walk though with great views over Nelson Bay Marina, which is very beautiful, even though it is responsible for the destruction of all the local history and we enjoyed checking out some of the interesting houses we would never have found if we hadn't gone on the walk. Afterwards we comforted ourselves with a Red Ned's pie, Australians love a pie and Red Ned's are exceptional, Ian had a prawn and scallop (though he usually favours the lobster and barrimundi with ginger) while I tucked into a buttered chick pea curry pie, they certainly went some way to making up for our disappointment.
Spring seems to be in the air here, the birds are pairing up and Ella, our resident koala has an admirer. She doesn't seem very interested but he is hanging around hopefully so, watch this space!