Blue Mountains with Old Friends

After a week of city life, we escaped to the Blue Mountains with our good friends, the Giffords.

Totem and Oso together again!

We first met Jamie and Behan Gifford and their three wonderful kids (Niall – 12, Marin – 9, and Siobhan – 7) in Monterey, CA in 2008. They were aboard s/v Totem and we had heard about them for months. When they pulled into the Monterey marina, six year old Bear yelled to them from the pier – “Hi Totem!” When they looked questioningly at him, he was baffled. “It’s me – Bear!” We had talked about meeting Totem so much that Bear was sure we knew them already and, of course, they knew him. They just laughed at this boisterous kid and continued to their slip. Within the hour, our families converged on the dock and met properly. We became instant friends. The girls came back to our boat to play for the afternoon and we made plans to explore the Monterey Aquarium the next day. We’ve been cruising buddies on and off since – California, Mexico and through the South Pacific. In 2010 when we turned south to New Zealand, s/v Totem continued on to Australia where they would stop and work for a while to refill their cruising coffers. Although we were sad to depart company, we knew we’d be together again.

So when we planned our land yacht cruise in southeast Australia, we were thrilled that the Giffords could join us!

First stop: –the Blue Mountains, just a two hour drive from Sydney. Behan, who had to fulfill her day job requirements, was able to meet us via the train for the weekend. In addition to watching kangaroos at the campsite, we went hiking in the gorgeous rainforest to a railway tunnel that contained a multitude of glow worms.

Sundowners around the campfire

We spent nine fun-filled days and nights together in various campsites between the Blue Mountains and the southern end of the state of New South Wales. The kids had a fabulous time exploring their surroundings, sleeping in tents, playing games and even doing school together. The pools, peddle go-carts and jumping pillows at some of the commercial campgrounds were probably their highlights. The adults enjoyed drinking wine around the fire, relaxing, catching up on each other’s lives and dining out sans kids a couple of times. Our highlights were having happy kids and being together again.