Finally, we left and had just made it out of the Byron Bay Shire, when Nici got a call asking if she’d be 1st AD on a short film. Now the deal was, Nici’s work comes first, so we decided to stop in Angourie for a few days, whilst Nici went back to Brisbane to shoot this short film. Our friends Biddy and Rookie live in Angourie, and as it was Biddie’s birthday so we were going there anyway… but lucky for us they were going back to France and allowed us to stay at their place for another week. Thanks guys.

Angourie is a nice little place east of Yamba, but a bit limiting if the weather is bad and you aren’t a keen surfer. Nici had gone with the car for 3 days, I did schoolwork with kids, we made rock castles on the beach, we explored rock pools and we swam in the blue pool. The Blue Pool is a man made quarry style pool right beside the ocean. Its deep, it can be cold, its full of little fish and its major fun to jump into from the many natural platforms. I’ve jumped from the very top a few times, but not this time. Too scary to do it with too little kids here relying on me.

Ayesha jumped in from about 3 meters, and Orlando did too from about 50cm. Both, were very excited. We went rock pooling at the north end of Shelley Beach, and it was awesome. Halfway between low and high tide…. there was a plethora of old favourites. Little fish, crabs, those funny anemone things with the red fronds that close up when you touch them…. but also some stuff we’d never seen before. There was a bright blue fish that looked like it would be at home in a tropical fish exhibit. Its fins looked more like decorative plumes than fins and it swam more like a butterfly than a fish. There were plenty of large fish in one pool, fish more than 25cm long – no idea what they were, possibly Australian Salmon. To top it all off, there was an Octopus, who was most concerned about our presence. He was not small, probably 35 cm from the tip of his head to the tip of his tentacles, and he was a fast mover. One moment pretending to be invisible, the next, shooting off as he realised we could see him. He escaped through a crack in the rock pool, into the ocean.

It was nice to doodle around just the kiddies and me for a few days. Nici returned after 3 days and we headed south west to Man River…