"I love this place called Coolendel, my haven from the norm, it's here I come to recharge my soul, just to relax and not conform." - words by a lesser known Australian poet and I'm not sure about the conforming bit but it's where Ken decided he wanted to spend his 40th birthday (we'll hold a joint party at home later in February). 6 other families - 14 adults and 15 kids, at last count, joined us to celebrate (or commiserate depending on the number of grey hairs and wrinkles) and enjoy a long, hot and sunny weekend away from Sydney (Ken's birthday conveniently coincides with Australia Day).
Coolendel a private campsite about 3.5 hours south of Sydney and the last half hour
is along a dirt track. It's called a wild life refuge and is teeming with peacocks, wallabies, goannas and wombats (reportedly the largest in NSW) although the biggest draw card for us is the river and the rapids which have some great rocks for jumping.
We arrived at about midday on Friday - Lenka and I took the four kids down early - and we put up our tents in about 35 degrees heat - I was puce coloured by the end but a swim in the river and a few cold white wines restored me in time for an evening around the campfire - not needed given the temperatures but atmospheric and essential for toasting the obligatory marshmellows.
Our days quickly took on the rhythm of breakfast, swim, lunch, swim, relaxing at the camp, swim, dinner, wombat and wallaby spotting, stories around the campfire, bed. It was incredibly relaxing and having that many kids makes life much easier as they can fall out and there is always someone else to play with.
We had one very relaxing afternoon in which a group of us took lilos down to the far side of the campsite and spent a very relaxing 2 hours
meandering down through untouched wilderness with high limestone escarpments to the main swimming spot. It was total bliss (though possibly not for Ken who had to cajole a very tired James through the shallow patches where he had to walk). (James insisted in sleeping in his own tent, very grown-up, but this meant he had
free reign to get up very early in the morning and was hence, exceptionally tired later in the day.)
The following morning we decided we needed some real exercise ) to work off all the marshmellows), so encouraged by the campsite owner we set out on an hour and a half walk. Parents with littlies (the under 4s) turned back after about 20 minutes, but the rest of us plodded on. Along the river bank, up a small creek, sometimes filled with water which necessitated some interesting scrambling, and on and on and on.
No-one believed me that we (Lenka and I) had been assured that the walk was only an hour and a half, and Lenka had turned back with Tess and Tom so couldn't verify my account. Despite the heat and uphill climb along the creek the kids all did amazingly well. Olivia developed awful blisters on the heels and had to be carried by Ken (which you can imagine he was delighted to do), but overall there was minimal whinging (even by James). We were very relieved to eventually find the road to Coolendel (particularly as we'd spent about half an hour going "I can hear a car, we're nearly at the road" but never seeming to get there.)
Once at the elusive road a picture had to be taken at the "Don't despair, you're almost there" sign - very apt. We arrived back at the campsite 3 hours later totally exhausted but with a few extra tales to embellish around the camp fire that evening.
What the kids like best about Coolendel is just mucking around in the river. There are some fantastic rocks for jumping off and Olivia had a lovely afternoon jumping off a metre high one with Tess. That, of course, was not sufficient for James, He headed straight the the highest rock (about 5 metres in height) and dived off (we did know it was deep enough from previous visits, but were not expecting him to dive). It was terrifying to watch, though even worse when I went up there with him (I was convinced he was going to fall backwards over the rocks as you have to stand on a very narrow ledge on the top and James didn't always seem to be paying attention to what was going on around him.) After that I chose to watch him from the water.
On Sunday it was Ken's birthday and Burns night so we celebrated with haggis, mash and swede followed by a lamington birthday cake - a nod to all the nationalities!
It was a lovely weekend - good fun, good friends, good wine and food - no doubt we'll be back next year.
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