On the 12th-15th, adventuring to Nelson Bay happened. The drive was over 3 hours long (had a nugget stop halfway, it was the highlight of my morning) and after several paddocks of horses and cows and koala signs, we finally arrived at our resort! I also figured out why I would be a very dangerous driver - I yawn once every 15 seconds and spend a solid hour every day wiping my eyes dry from dem yawn tears. If I were to drive, I'd be dead. 

Mantra Aqua

With half an hour left on the road, I realised that Dan's remaining battery wouldn't last (his phone was the GPS) and this was also when he realised that he had left his phone charger at home... Since our stay was 4 days and 3 nights, we adventured around the neighbourhood in search of buying a phone charger. By the time we had left the house it was nearing late afternoon so all the computer and gadget stores were closed, Coles didn't sell chargers in general, no one knew where the said Kmart was and the charger at 7-eleven was ridiculously pricey and even so, it was just a car charger. After walking around aimlessly, we ended up at D'albora Marinas - a harbour full of boats. 

All the asian tourists kept staring at us because we were in shorts + tshirts (a singlet in Dan's case because I stole his jacket hehe) and they were wearing coats, jeans, scarves etc; Yes it was a cold winter's day but we were planning to take a dip in the waters which didn't end up happening because the beach we found didn't seem too friendly to be in. 

It was a pretty sight regardless

My favourite boy in the world hehe

Felt sorry for him because I kept stopping to take tourist shots and halfway I decided to whip out my camera and start vlogging (something we were both very unfamiliar with, even more foreign to him) and... it was a very interesting clip to look back on LOL "Oh a Chrysler?!" 

Sun's going down!

Heading back, we asked the friendly receptionist if they had a spare charger (and they did hallelujah!) and this is Dan checking out how cold the pool water was. The actual pool turned out to be freezing cold but the spa as expected, was warm.

Keeping ourselves entertained during the car ride... or the boy being pure sped hehe

Our rooms! We booked a one bedroom apartment so the receptionist was like "you'll find that one part of your room would be shut out because it's another bedroom and your deal was only one" and we were all chill about it but then nek minnut it wasn't shut out. Not sure if lucky or what but it made no difference anyway because we didn't even use the other bedroom... except for the time when Dan tried to hide in the closet and scare me (which didn't work because he wasn't in any of the other areas in the house so he had to be in the wardrobe zzz)

Brought my friend along! 

Day 2 dinner at Hog's Breath Cafe, our waiter was Tim and he was very friendly. I would post photos of the food but my camera died during dinner and my phone photos are so shit (low lighting). The only thing that was a downer during dinner was the fact that the wooden tables felt sticky, the surface was clear but you could feel that it has been long since a proper wipe down. 

We played these games with water i.e. if you lost, you drink an entire cup of water and guess who ended up dying? Me. 

I brought like 4/5 tiny Japanese games and these were 2 of 4 which we wasted our nights on. Looking back, we actually stayed in 60-70% of the time, lazing around on the couch and watching a shitload of movies #noregrets. Introduced Hachi to Dan and maybe because my love for dogs is fonder than ever right now, I found it even more depressing watching it the second time. Proud to say that there were no tears! Only tearing up (for the both of us hehe) although I would've cried waterfalls if I was alone.

Made laksa for lunch, all the prawns stunk up our bin (prawn heads, prawn shells and prawn turds) and on the night of day three, we died. It wasn't even your normal garbage bin stench, it was something that I've never smelt before LOL but yeah, we both lost our souls on our way to garbage disposal. Ended the night with Anh Do (yes the school certificate guy, he was doing some travel program showing the cool stuff/activities in town so it was actually quite interesting) and a Matrix marathon! I died half an hour in and Dan slept after only 1 movie (it started at a relatively late time and we wanted to wake up early the morning after for the beach). 

Favourite.

Morning of our last day! The afternoon before we went cruising around a bit (or more like getting lost on purpose, we didn't know directions but we knew that Shoal Bay/Tomaree's head was to the right of us so we kept driving right LOL) and we ended up finding a really nice beach. Since we didn't have any clothes to get wet in, we decided to drive back, get changed and come back again... despite it raining a little. 

Ended up giving up and had another movie night but determined to visit the beach the next morning i.e. our last day. By the second night we had watched Hachi, Monsters University, Brave, a little bit of Finding Nemo and Hamish & Andy hehe. Even made sure we got home from dinner before 7:30 just to make it in time for their program. Dan also gravitates to the TV screen when watching a movie/TV program/gayest superhero cartoons and fail Power Rangers... he gets so into it regardless of what kind of show he's watching and it's so intense LOL 

There were also many, many, many pelicans on the nice beach we found 

Obligatory panorama 

I think we've all seen the photos online of the girl dragging along her boyfriend to different places while touring and we decided to give it a shot and recreate our own hehe. Our first was at the Biennale but we couldn't resist and take another one with the beautiful scenery at Nelson Bay. Also never realised how long my hair actually is. People from time to time will comment on how long it has grown but I've never actually seen it from behind so it was quite surprising when I was going through these photos. 

Trying to find fish? (It's a fishing spot btw) I wanted to take more photos after the stroll along the beach but literally 5m away, we see a dad and his sons running along the boardwalk with a bucket and fishing lines. Sigh :(

He's always looking out into the sea, it always makes me wonder what goes on in his head. 

Where our route stopped - up ahead was just rock and more rock, no sand to walk on. I felt like I was at Fiji or something, where you can see the neighbouring island in the backdrop among the clouds. 

Blessed with fine weather in the early afternoon! 

Aaand he's back in the water again. This kid.

I stalked this pelican around for a solid minute, it was so big up close holy shit. The water at Shoal Bay was also very clear and pretty, the way it would transition as a gradient was amazing. We also tried to stone skip but that ended up as a competition to see who could throw these massive rocks the farthest. Literally spent a solid 15 minutes digging up massive rocks from the sand, handing it to each other and throwing it across the sea. Dan said that he would be able to throw a smaller stone at the ship nearby (and I said wtf impossible) but it turned out to be further than it actually seemed hehe, it's all about the perspective! Our hands bruised a little (it actually hurts when you throw massive rocks into the air, it's as if it grazes across your skin before you let go) but that quickly got better :) 

Panorama again!

Dusting the sand off our feet, we headed back into the car in hopes of eating lunch at Hog's Breath Cafe. Dan wanted to try their crispy caesar chicken wrap lunch special (sighted on a menu the night before) so off we went! My phone camera also played some weird tricks on me, everything I took (before locking and unlocking my phone again) was rainbow?! And it was super duper cool (despite the shock and panic at first) because I could move my camera around while taking the photo and it will capture two different moments and stitch it together? Like in the second photo, you see my dress but because the camera lagged and I moved it upwards, you can see the trees ahead as well!

My seafood wrap and Dan's caesar wrap. You really couldn't tell the difference between the two unless you inspected the insides closely LOL We also said how it would be awkward if Tim served us again but someone else started off as our waiter.... and then we saw Tim LOL 

Curly fries > normal fries any day

I really like how the waiters write 'Thank You' on the receipt, even if they don't actually sincerely mean it, it's nice to see some sort of gratification on a bill that's about to burn a hole in your wallet. 

Despite the 13-14 degree weather, I wanted an iced chocolate regardless hehe. Browsed around a few shops around the neighbourhood and Dan and I both realised the fact that the old white women here (not being racist, just an observation) are rather unhappy. Like usually if you accidentally nearly collide into someone or when you need to give way, you say sorry as a sign of politeness... and the other person would reply with "it's okay" or some sort of gesture that shows that they're sorry too/it's okay. However, the old ladies at Nelson Bay would just glare back like wtf you are either quite the impolite person or racist. (There aren't many Asians in the area so one can only make assumptions). But yeah, not saying that they are racist but they're actually quite grumpy people... like seriously cheer up zzz your days on Earth are limited so stop spending them frowning at other people - turn it upside down into a smile 

We then wanted to head towards the pool, swim and be ruthless (it was freezing, the water hurt my feet? it was so painful to step in and stay for 10 seconds because the moment you take your feet out it just started to hurt for some reason). We headed down in hopes of trying the spa but by the time we had arrived, a family was already soaking in the warm water and another family who arrived at the same time as us, had the same intentions. A movie later (Brave), we headed down again to find that there were still people at the spa so we went to Coles instead, 'bought Batman Blueberry Bubble Bath' and recreated our own 'spa' LOL 

Our way back to Sydney! 

I have always wanted to drive through a scene like this, you see it in movies so often. We actually drove through it for a few minutes but I didn't realise that we were driving through it? Like I was staring at everything but it wasn't until Dan said something about how cool the surroundings were that I realised this was actually something I may or may not have dreamt about seeing. Had a DFO stop before getting dropped off, went to Coach in hopes of finding a small trench coat (they were out of stock as usual) and Oroton to hopefully find new sales. Dan visited a variety of sports stores but we only ended up buying Easyway and a coat from Giordano.

The people you choose to travel with really does make a massive difference.

To one of the best weeks of 2014