It was hot on the weekend. I moved my longer run to Saturday morning, which was forecasted to be a bit cooler. I was still a sweaty mess afterwards and needed a cool shower so I would be ready for our 8:30 am departure for berry picking. This is a yearly ritual (see 2024 and 2023). The plan was to get down to the farm at Deans Marsh when it opened at 10 am so we could pick before it got too hot. We arrived at the farm just after 10 am. The gates were closed. This is not the first time we’ve rocked up to closed farm gates. There was also no cell phone coverage to double-check the website, so we turned around and headed back to the General Store at Deans Marsh to check the website and reconsider our plans over some refreshments. As we drove, we passed many signs for the Pennyroyal Berry Farm. A quick website check showed that our usual picking spot, Gentle Annie’s, was now only opening for Friday Night Dinners. Pennyroyal Berry Farm was open and had blackberry varieties, so we decided to take a look. Ten minutes later, we were back outside the locked gate of Gentle Annie’s—I’d put the wrong address into the maps. We turned around again and finally made it to Pennyroyal.

By this time, it was 11 am and hot. I chatted with the lady about their berries, and we decided to see if we could get enough Marionberries. She gave us a bamboo stick each to lift the canes to get at the berries. It was still tough picking, and I ended the day picking prickles out of my arms. The girls and I also ventured into the American Brambles to supplement the Marionberries. Picking took about an hour, and I was a sweaty mess for the second time that day. We weighed our berries and then retired to the airconditioned cafe for scones with jam and cream.

The farm is quite pretty, but the berries were expensive ($32/kg). That still makes the jam slightly more expensive per jar than Bon Maman and cheaper than gourmet offerings, but I’ve found a few farms down Gippsland Way that are cheaper. If we went there, though, we would need to pick when we are in Melbourne. Sunday was hotter than Saturday, so we made the jam on Monday when it was raining.

I needed a nap after the berry picking, so by the time we made it to the beach on Saturday, it was about 4 pm. It was just after high tide, and the water was doing a pretty good washing machine impersonation. There were decent-sized shorebreakers, so we stood on the edge for a few minutes, trying to time our run into the water so we wouldn’t get dumped into the sand. S was unsuccessful, but she popped up and claimed bragging rights for the first to be fully immersed. Not far from the shore, we were over our heads, and with the strong current dragging us down the beach and the suck back with each wave, we spent most of our efforts just trying to stay in the flags and not too far from shore. The beach is rated 8 (highly hazardous) by Surf Life Saving Australia. It is not recommended for swimmers without experience with rips and currents. I did surf lifesaving as a teenager and used to spend most sunny days during the summer holidays down the beach with the other cadets. I only had a few days rostered on patrol. One of those days, we closed the beach because the conditions were so atrocious, and we played cards all day. I would never swim there when there is no patrol.

Swimming lessons until the kids were proficient swimmers were non-negotiable in our house. Since the beach at Point Lonsdale is so dangerous, I also insisted all three kids do Nippers, which is the Junior Lifesaving program. The program is run at Santa Casa Beach, a pretty safe bay beach. One day each year, the older age groups (11-13) would have back beach day. I remember walking down the dune to the beach, seeing E’s group out in the water, and wondering what they were doing in the Escalator, a permanent rip near the reef. Soon, numerous kids were out there, swimming hard and getting nowhere (along with the cadet instructors), and the IRB was launched to start picking them up. Three trips later, E was returned to the beach, one of the last to get “rescued.” Apparently, one of the leaders had decided to send the kids out there so they could ride the Escalator out and then swim across and in. That worked brilliantly for the first group of kids, but by the time it was E’s turn, a strong side current had sprung up, pushing the kids back into the Escalator. I guess they learned some valuable lessons that day: what a rip feels like, how quickly conditions can change and how to stay calm and tread water while help arrives. The IRB got plenty of practice picking up kids as well.

Are you berry pickers or jam makers? Do you like swimming in the ocean? If you have kids, is there an extracurricular activity that is non-negotiable in your house?