Down on the farm …

Earlier on in these Easter holidays we had promised Jack that we’d take him to Canberra (about a two and a half hour drive from here depending on how many serial-killing pill-popping lorry drivers have rolled their road trains into a ditch on the way) so he could visit Questacon. However as the day approached both the missus and I realised that we really couldn’t be arsed to drive all that way, particularly since we were bound to meet plenty of homeward bound holiday traffic in both directions.

However we’d already promised Jack his day in our nation’s capital and so, in time-honoured parental fashion, we resorted to blatant bribery in order to console him. We said we’d drive up to Shellharbour instead and that he could spend the equivalanet of the entrance fee at the museum on Lego. He quickly ran off to his computer and started working out what he could get for $50. Once he’d discovered he could get several cars and a Power Miner, he quickly agreed.

So yesterday we drove the back way to Shellharbour. Our first port of call was the cinema where we bought tickets to see Race to Witch Mountain. The showing was 90 minutes off so we decided to get the dirty business of the bribe out of the way first, and took Jack to Target where they have a particularly good selection of Lego sets. We soon arrived at a combination of sets that pleased him, paid for them and left. Liz had a mooch around the clothes shops but didn’t find much she liked. I’m probably not much help under such circumstances – she pulled one wooly cardigan off a rack and asked me what I thought. I told her that if the look she was going for was Barbara out of The Good Life digging potatos up in a Surbiton back garden – then she’d nailed it. She stopped asking my opinion on things after that.

The film showing time was approaching and so we drove back over to the Greater Union and wandered in. My earlier decision to buy the tickets then proved to be a very wise move as the queue snaked round the entire length of the foyer. We found the screen the film was showing in and, being first in the cinema, picked some seats right at the back in the centre. It was then decided that I’d brave the queues and get some popcorn and a drink, so I wandered off.

This proved to be a problem however, as Greater Union had, in their infinite wisdom, integrated the sale of popcorn and fizzy pop with the ticket sales. So I had to brave the same monstrous queue we’d so deftly avoided earlier. As I was waiting Liz phoned me and asked me what our seat numbers were. I asked her why she wanted to know, but she wouldn’t say. I told her the row and seat numbers and she said, “Oh that’s alright then.” By the time 11:50 (the start of the film) rolled around I was still only half way down the queue so I took an executive decision to skip the popcorn, ducked under the tape and went back to the screen. When I got back Liz told me why she’d phoned. Apparently some guy wandered in and informed a smelly older bloke in luminous yellow work overalls who was accompanying (I assume) his grandkid – that he was sitting in his seat. The bloke pointed out the cinema was far from full (there were about 20 people in there) and he could take his pick. The guy had said that was great because he’d have no problem getting another seat. Bit more back and forth. Bloke says it’s no good – that he’d booked those specific seats – and he wanted to sit in them. Expletives exchanged. At this point some other lady had butted in and told ‘em that the seats were ticket specific now, something they’d introduced fairly recently. Eventually the smelly bloke and his sprog move. Right close to us. Nice.

Anyway – the film was actually pretty enjoyable. The parents lot has been made much easier lately thanks to the efforts of companies like Pixar who’ve made films that the olds can enjoy just as much as the sprogs. I wouldn’t say Disney’s Race to Witch Mountain was up there with Finding Nemo, but it was a fairly enjoyable romp with some great action sequences and some cool special effects. More to the point, the sprog thoroughly enjoyed it.

After the film we dined at the local Hogs Breath cafe. The sprog had the Classic Loaded Potato Skins, the missus had the Calamari Balsamic salad and I had a Buffalo Ranch Chicken Burger. Very tasty too. Some teenagers at the table next to us got themselves into a spot of bother when one of them order the Hoggies Rocky Road Sundae (4 scoops of creamy vanilla ice cream and 4 scoops of luscious strawberry ice cream, on a pile of warm chocolate mud cake drenched in chocolate fudge sauce, plus marshmallows, strawberry topping, whipped cream and toasted coconut), which is large enough to swim in. Poor lad had to phone his mum, who waiting in the car outside, to tell her he’d ordered the Godzilla of deserts and would be delayed while he recruited passing diners to help him eat it.

Having been disappointed by the shops in Stockland, Liz asked if we could go home via Shellharbour Village because she’d remembered they had some cool small boutique clothes shops there. So we left her to it and the sprog and I wandered down to the harbour. Amazingly the missus managed to find some Jeans she liked, thanks to a nice, if bossy, shopkeeper who’d taken her in hand.

As we were driving out of Shellharbour I noticed the sign to the Killalea State Park and decided that we’d go and check it out as it’s one of the few parts of the coastline between our town and Sydney that we haven’t explored. All the weirder we’d never been before because it happens to have one of the finest surfing beaches on the NSW coast. So we followed the signs through the Legoland that is New Shellharbour and eventually found the park entrance.

There were myriad car parks and tracks leading off in all directions, so I pulled over, waited for a car with surfboards on the roof to go by (I didn’t have to wait long) and followed them. We were lead down a steep hill with totally stunning views of the ocean to a fairly small bay. The car park was very busy and there were plenty of surfers in the water enjoying the clean waves.

We made our way home slowly, taking the back roads whenever possible and then called in on my parents so that Jack could tell them all about the film and show off his Lego.