Queenscliff 2015 - Day 2

I was awake earlier than anyone else so I headed down to the beach early - it was already 30 degrees when I left the house just before 7am. The beach was beautiful, and the water not too cold, and I had a wonderful morning swim completely by myself. I swam in the area enclosed by rocks on 2 sides, which I remembered from last year, but I was a little nervous about undertow and there was a strong current pulling to the left (away from the area that went out to deeper water) so I was very careful when I was in there. After I had swum for long enough I thought about going for a walk around the headland, but my knee was still quite sore so I figured I'd be better to take it easy and just head home.

There were a few other people up when I got back, and the girls came out after a while. We had a leisurely morning - F cooked some eggs and ham, people had breakfast when they felt like it, I played Uno Spin with the kids and we all played with T. Mum and Dad decided to go for a walk to the beach and Caitlin went with them so she could have a swim. Once LiAM got out of bed I got all our stuff ready and he and Millie and I headed down as well. We met Mum and Dad coming back, so Caitlin turned around and came back to the beach with us. F and T joined us for a little while also. The tide was much lower than when I'd been there earlier in the morning and there were sections of very shallow water with sandbanks in between them, and still lots of deep enough water to swim in. Caitlin and I swam a lot and LiAM was in and out. Millie mainly played on the sand although came in a few times - not very far on her own, and was happy for me to carry her in a bit deeper.

LiAM and Millie started to build a sandcastle with a moat around it, in between two of the channels of water. I joined in and we made it big enough that when Millie sat behind it we couldn't see her at all from the other side! Caitlin helped as well and it was a huge, fun project. I was lying in the shallow water when we saw the Spirit of Tasmania come past, which we'd been hoping to see. We watched it go out through the heads - and then we were hit with the wave caused by it going past - from where I was lying on the sand it looked huge although it wasn't really. It came up past our sandcastle and destroyed our moat a fair bit, but the castle held! It was quite exciting.

Eventually we headed back to the house - just as Tony arrived at the beach. Caitlin stayed with him for a while. We hung around the house and had lunch, played games and so on. Mum and Fi took Caitlin down the street to look at the op shops and some other interesting shops. Mum and Dad went for a drive to Point Lonsdale, and Tony and I went for a walk down the street, checking out the op shop, one or two of the vintage shops and having a coffee. It was lovely to have the chance to go out alone and wander at our own pace. The weather had changed by now too, no longer hot and sunny, but much cooler and with the threat of rain. The kids had wanted to go back down to the beach but it got quite windy too, not really beach weather. Tony and Dad played a cricket card game for a good chunk of the afternoon.

In the evening Caitlin cooked spaghetti bolognese for everybody, which was delicious. Tony had suggested we go down to the bowling club for barefoot bowls - I felt my knee wasn't up to it, so Mum, Tony and the kids went and played and had a great time. Dad, Fi, James and I started to play a board game called Wit's End - kind of like Trivial Pursuit, but with more brain teasing questions. It was hard, and a lot of fun. After a while Dad, Fi and I went for a walk down to the beach to see the sunset, where we were met by the others after their bowls game. Back at the house LiAM went straight to bed and the rest of us played a few more games, then headed off ourselves.

Sunset