Trip 21 – Augusta Christmas and New Years

2018 what a year! It started normally enough, kicking off with our annual, and now repeated, pilgrimage to Augusta for the 2017/2018 Christmas period. We then fell into the usual work/life routine, with of both the girls doing fantastic at Uni, and Jules and I doing the daily grind of work. But then it changed.. Jules tool a long planned 2 month holiday to Cape York with BJ and Rod (see “Trip 20” on the blog for those posts). Whilst the girls managed to feed themselves, keep the dog alive and not burn down the house when we were away. On our return, Jules needed a sea change and chucked in her Dental Nursing job of 20+ years, and I agreed to take on a new contract gig for Kinetic IT, this time in Canberra, which is where Jules and I will be spending 2019!

So to say the last 5 months of 2018 felt a bit weird and happened in a rush is an understatement. But here we are again, @Augusta for our 2018/2019 annual changeover and re-charge.

Blessed with some of the best weather we’ve ever had at Augusta, we made the most of our time swimming, relaxing, chilling with friends, playing beach cricket, eating and drinking. It was so relaxed in fact that I (Tony) didn’t even get the camera out for a single photo! This means that all of the following pics were all taken on smartphones by various members of the camping crew, mostly at New Years eve. Whilst it probably looks from these pics that we spent the entire night in the bottle, it was actually a pretty tame night with lots of laughter and heaps of funny pics.

But before we get into the pics, the main and notable events of this years trip were:

• Tony did his back, followed by Madeleine doing her neck, resulting is us both spending a good number of days literally chair bound
• The camp crew revisited Yeagarup Sand Dunes, down near Pemberton, for some fun 4WD’ing and beach cricket atop the dunes
• We found a lovely new winery on Caves Road which we’d highly recommend, Mr Barval.
• We had a fantastic 12 plate degustation meal, with matching wines, with Putter and Tania at Hayshed Hill Winery
• The Budge family then had another great meal for Madeleine’s impending 21st Birthday at Glenarty Wines
• There wasn’t as much fishing this trip, in part due to Tony’s bad back and also an algal bloom shutting down the Scott and Blackwood Rivers around Molloy Island, however, we did try some squidding from the marina for the 1st time with some nice squid caught.
• We managed to get in 5 swims at the beach which is a record for Augusta as normally the water is too bloody cold.