Lily's Clipper Adventure: An Ozzy Xmas

Morning all! I hope that everybody has had a fabulous christmas and not regreting that extra helping of pudding we all had! As part of our stay in Geraldton is was arranged that a few of the local families would adopted stray clipper crew on christmas day and treat them to a christmas 'ozzy-style'. Lindsey and I were adopted by David and Joanne Shea and we couldn't have had asked for a nicer or more welcoming family. On Christmas eve they took us and Jonny G to their daughter's house where family and friends had gathered to see their christmas lights. Every year there is a competition for the bst decorated house and this year Marika and Scott won first prize. Loads of cars drive past to see the lights which are all choreographed to different Chrsitmas songs, and the kids hand out 'lollies' to the drivers.

When David arranged to pick us up from the boat he said that we would know his car when we saw it as it was the only one of its kind. He wasn't wrong! The car is used to raise money for a children's charity called Variety which provides funds for children's needs.

On Christmas day the whole family was round at their (massive) house and everybody has presents to open - even me and Lindsey had a package to open. Christmas dinner was very traditional with meat and
veg but the crayfish and prawns were slightly less tradition but even more yummy! I can now peel and eat any part of a crayfish or prawn! Joanne loves christmas and the inside of the house is just covered in decorations, its hard to know which way to look because their are father christmases, snowmen, reindeer, bells, and all sorts of christmassy things hidden in every corner and every surface! Like a real Christmas grotto!

We stayed over on Christmas day and john joined us on boxing day morning after spending Christmas with his own adopted family. We then borrowed one of David and Joanne's cars and went down the coast towards Dongera to see a bit of the countryside, the highlight for John was when he over took a road train on its way to the docks at Geraldton! We borrowed the car again yesterday and went North this time towards Kalbarri and the nature reserve up there. On the way we stopped at Port Gregory where their is a lagoon on the beach and a pink lagoon/salt pan just inland. the colours are just incredible adn the pictures don't do them or the size any justice!