Swimming with Sharks.

On New Years Day we went to Palm beach, also known as Summer Bay to Home and Away fans. Having never seen an episode of Home and Away I didn't really recognise any of the sites of interest pointed out to me by Allen.

This lighthouse view is apparently in the opening credits as is the beach view. The beach was very clean and long and even better very empty.

Except for one big animal that was determined to spoil our swim. Just as we got to the beach the lifeguards there were blowing their whistles and letting go with their siren on their beach buggy.

One of the lifeguards had spotted a shark in the water so the few swimmers in the water were all told to get out. One of the poor lifeguards was suiting up with a life jacket and all his mates were having a good laugh at him. It turned out to be his job to get on the jet ski and try to chase the shark away from the beach.

We waited around for about twenty minutes watching the lifeguard whiz back and forth in the sea. Eventually he came back and gave the all clear to get back into the water.

Well Allen, Mike and I weren't going to let one shark ruin our new years day swim. I figured as long as I kept a couple of kids in front of me they would certainly be making more splashes in the water to attract the shark. :-) So, swimming in shark-infested waters, check!

We all had a good swim in the sea and it was a real shame that there wasn't a shop that we could hire body boards as the shallow beach and waves would have been perfect for some body boarding.

After the beach we drove up to a lookout point where you could see Palm Peach and the surrounding bay. The view was quite breath taking. Yet another one of those views which I could quite happily watch till the cows came home or the sun set and the mosquitos came out to play at least.

We also saw a small roo at the lookout point. As usual for kangaroos as soon as it saw someone it jumped around for a bit to make enough noise to be noticed and then froze and stared at us. As Allen pointed out it was probably the worst thing it could do if we were trying to catch it! Make some noise to attract attention to itself then stop so that it could be caught easily.

The roo had obviously been in a fight as part of one ear was missing. It had nothing to do with me, honest!

We watched the roo for a few minutes before I decided to see how close I could get to it. It obviously wasn't really used to human contact because as soon as I got to within a couple of metres of it, it scarpered off into the bush.