Once we had made the decision to move Down Under I started to devour as many books based in Australia as possible to try and get a bit of a feel for the place.
One of my favourites was Salvation Creek by Susan Duncan which is a true story about the author's search for a place to call home after a series of devastating tragedies rock her world. She stumbles accidentally on a place called Pittwater and her writing gives such a strong sense of the place, I have wanted to see it ever since. 

 The opportunity arose this week as we needed to take the car down to Sydney to pick up a new battery for the caravan and realised Pittwater was quite close to where we were going.
Pittwater is in Sydney, to the north and backs on to Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park. Some small towns which face onto Pittwater, such as Clareville have nice bayside beaches and can be accessed by road so are very expensive because they are an easy trot into Sydney's central business district. Further along are Whale Beach and Palm Beach (where Mick Jagger has a home) which have surf beaches on one side and bay beaches on the other thereby satisfying both a hankering for dangerous pursuits and a safe place for children. 

Susan, our heroine, finds a home on Pittwater itself which is a large expanse of densely wooded bay with houses dotted among dozens of little inlets which can only be accessed by boat. 
Church Point is approached from Mona Vale Road and is home to a shop which serves as a general store, cafe, bar, restaurant, post office and drop off point for deliveries. The residents leave their cars at Church Point and hop into their tinnies (small aluminium boats with outboard motors) or take a water taxi to their waterside properties.

 These homes are not great for a daily commute into the city because the boat element adds a significant amount of time to the journey, but they are sensational if you do not need to do that or are lucky enough to be able to afford a weekend home.

 Most houses have their own deck and jetty and reach right down to the water's edge where it is incredibly peaceful at night with only the sounds of the bush behind and the water in front. During the day it is a busy stretch of water and ferries take tourists around who, probably like me are fans of the book and want to have a nose at where the author moved to.
It was a gorgeous spot, I can see why it became her salvation.