This morning saw the Martin clan partake in a variety of ‘holiday cereals’ (ie sugar lightly dusted with processed grain and food colouring) before setting off for a jaunt about Kiama. We made our way to the Little Blowhole, a more petite yet far more reliable aperture.

From here we drove over to Kiama Lighthouse to take a peek at the Little Blowhole’s more gaping cousin. To be honest, it was a tad underwhelming, but I did manage to snag a delightful (completely kitsch) stubby holder from the Tourist Information Centre, and we also noticed a fairly nice-looking rockpool.

We sampled some gelato we found in one of the many cafes located on the main street, and attempted to cross said street to the nearby park. Kiama feels that while it signposts designated crossing areas, pedestrians should give way to cars instead of the other way around. The vehicles that appear to accelerate as you make your way across the road of doom (complete with a rapidly-melting Italian desert clenched in your fist) clearly see the sport in this. Somehow we managed to avoid both carnage and serious dairy stains on the kids clothes, and made our way back to Surf Park.

We’d promised the kids we’d descend the goat track once again, to the nearby beach for a swim. 

The goat track.

They were racing along the sand gleefully, and we were just sizing up which bit of the beach afforded the least risky surf, when a young teen ran up to advise us that the jet ski we’d seen circling for the last 10 minutes had just warned all swimmers out of the water due to an overly-curious Bull Shark. 

Retreating back up the above-mentioned goat track, the Martin kiddies decided that the Park pool wasn’t such a bad option after all - particularly when the coastguard  called in a helicopter and later a surf plane (complete with sirens) warning people to get the heck away from the water. We later saw on the news that there was not one, but three Bull Sharks cruising up and down the beaches of Kiama.

We sampled some pies at the local (award-winning!!) pie shop and drove west along Saddleback Mountain road to take a peek at the lookout. The final few hundred metres was of sufficient gradient to leave the mighty CX5’s engine running a little hot.

After viewing some very pretty pastureland with an ocean backdrop,  we headed back to the car. It appeared ours was not the only car experiencing some elevated engine temps.

Giving up on the idea of beaches for the time-being, we revisited the rock pool we had spotted earlier. The water was so cold I let out a harrowing sob that drew pitying/embarrassed looks from the young people nearby. Once I lost feeling in my extremities, I started to relax and make my way around the rock pool (the lack of sensation evidenced by my surprise when I later noticed some minor lacerations to my feet, likely coming from any number of molluscs festooning the depths and walls). The place was essentially a very large, naturally-occurring rock pool that had two sides walled up. Hamish was nearly taken out by an overly-enthusiastic octogenarian who flailed his way across the pool undertaking an overly-territorial version of backstroke.

The local news not only gave us the run-down on the sharks circling the town of Kiama (and effectively about 20 metres away from our cabin), but of a prison escapee sighted at the local blowhole. Admittedly, it was some kid that had absconded from a minimum security outing…and was a couple of days ago – but still, we are clearly living through some dangerous times here.