We left Sydney today and got the train a couple of hours down the coast to a small town called Gerringong.  It took us a while to find where we were staying - a place called Chittick Lodge.  It was once a YHA hostel but was now just run by the local churches.  We found our room which was quite basic.  It was like a dorm room with 8 beds in it but it had been sold to us just as a twin room. 

We soon found out that Gerringong is a very quiet place - a bit of a culture shock after being in Sydney for a few weeks.  There only seems to be us and one other family staying here.

We later cooked tea of freeze dried turkey and mash that we had been carrying around with us since our aborted walk in New Zealand - it wasn't as bad as expected.  The bad thing was we couldn't wash it down with a cold beer because alcohol isn't allowed on the premises - due to it being a Christian run organisation.  Think we may be using some tips we have learnt from young people and sneaking beer into our room!!

Now since having a cockroach in Bondi we have become a bit paranoid about the creatures so we barricaded our room by stuffing a towel under the door - hopefully this will keep us creature free - we shall see!

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Yesterday, we tried to recover from our battles with creatures by relaxing on the beach. This proved not to be. As we approached the beach it felt a little breezy, but when we sat down we soon realised that if we tried to stay here for the next couple of hours, we would disappear into the sands of time, literally. It was like being in the Sahara Desert, with sand being blown about all over the place. That was why there were only about three other people on the beach. We relaxed back at the lodge for the rest of the day, with Emma taking on all domestic duties due to Diane having a cold.

No cockroaches to report today,despite waking up at regular intervals to check for them. Got chatting to an Australian guy in the kitchen who had come up from Melbourne for the weekend with his family, and he was telling us about the bushfires that have been burning to the north-east of Melbourne for the last few weeks. He was saying that an area the size of England has been burnt already, and that's in Victoria, one of the smallest states in Australia.

Did a couple of jobs today: got our bus booked to Narooma and accomodation sorted for when we arrive. After a coffee at the Sea Vista cafe which overlooks Werri Beach, we had a couple of hours sunbathing on the beach. Conditions perfect today, with lots of local surfers out, honing their skills.

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After a reduced amount of sleep we awoke and had to reluctantly get out of bed as we were going into Berry today and had to catch the morning train.  Emma met up with Michael the centre supervisor who informed her that there had been an attempted break in last night at the church nearby.  The person scurrying past our room at 2am had been carrying a fire extinguisher he had got from the kitchen.  We had witnessed a crime wave in Gerringong!

We caught the train and got into Gerringong at about 11.30 - it was hot, very hot.  This was the first time we had come inland since being in Austraila and we could see why most Aussies live on the coast - the little breeze makes this heat much more bearable.  We had a wander up and down the main street but it was just too hot so we called at a pub for a drink.  By the time we left it had got even hotter so we walked to the other end of town and booked ourselves into some posh accomodation for Sunday night - we thought it was about time we had a treat.  We had our lunch on a bench then retreated to the other pub in town before getting a train back to Gerringong - we will explore the shops in Berry further when we come on Sunday.  The pubs in Australia are turning out to be quite amusing in that very few of them have women in.  Most of the pubs are bookies too so they tend to contain the types we get in our bookies at home, all sat with a pint watching the horse racing and shouting every now and then.

We cooked tea at the hostel and then headed back to our room for the night.  Emma did final checks around the room for creatures - all looked clear.  At about midnight we settled down to sleep - with the light on of course - when Houdini the cockroach appears on the floor from nowhere.  Now this roach is much cleverer than last night's - he goes and hides behind a bed where we can see him but can't get him - sneaky!  After 2 hours he comes and and goes under Diane's boot.  By this point we had almost given up and surrendered to the creatures but suddenly Emma the brave had a last burst of endurance.  The boots were moved, the creature scurries.  It appears on the wall - whack, whack, whack - Emma is sure she has him and breathes a sigh of relief.  All of a sudden it is off again, this time heading for the ceiling.  From the supportive position on her bed Diane shouts "Get it, get it!"  It goes out of reach so Emma begins some strange form of flip-flop throwing, hitting everything but the cockroach - she could have been an England bowler (apparently she usually has good aim but with the stress of the situation.....).  Eventually Diane has to take the front line and whacks it.  It falls to the ground but still it limps on.  A couple more bashes from Emma and it is no more.  Houdini the stongest cockroach in Gerringong is dead.  It joins the other cockroaches of history in the rubbish bin.  It may only have been one cockroach but it was a mighty one.  We hadn't seen any others during this epic battle so we went to sleep - with the light on.

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We spent today on the beach.  Werri Beach is the main beach in Gerringong and it is very beautiful, quite a long beach with a rock pool at one end.  We had a meal out at an Italian called Zoobs which was good.  We got back to our room and barricaded ourselves in and prepared for the night - last night we were sure we had heard things scurrying around.

As soon as it gets dark flying creatures start hurling themselves at the windows kamikaze style - it felt like we were under seige, but at least they were outside.  At 11pm we switched out the light as nothing had moved.  At midnight Emma shot out of bed and put the light on as she thought she had seen a creature moving across her bed.  As she did this we saw a huge cockroach scurry off towards Diane's bed.  The next minute we saw another dart out of nowhere and hide under a boot.  Emma leapt up in the manner of a demented woman, grabbed a flip flop and muttered some sentence that didn't make much sense but included some x rated language.  The attack had begun.  The next two hours turned into a war of attrition as we hunted down the two large creatures that had entered our territory.  Eventually when they were both flip flopped to death and placed in the bin we went to sleep (with the light on) and had an interrupted nights sleep.  The major interruption being a big noise outside and seeing a person run past our room dragging something.  We heard a few little noises for about the next ten minutes but then nothing more so went off to sleep.

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