Dee Why

We’ve been staying with our friends Stevie and Fiona and their two children Alba (11) and Archie (8) in their home in Dee Why in the Northern Beaches for the last fortnight.

Cycling up to Stevie’s door on Friday 3 October felt like the strangest thing. We were finally here. In his home! Huge hugs all round. Although hugs for Fiona and Alba would have to wait - our timing meant they were still away visiting friends and family in the UK. They would be back from their six-week holiday the following Saturday.

Staying in Dee Why has been a wonderful mix of exploring where they live, sharing in their colourful lives, and doing an awful lot of faffing in preparation for Indonesia.

Exploring where they live meant…

… we had to have coffee at their local cafe ‘21 Grams’, just across the road from their house.

… we took a walk Saturday afternoon from the door north to Long Reef Headland. On the way we enjoyed the flower-edged peach coloured sand of Fisherman’s beach. On the headland we got caught up in addictive whale spotting, watching several breach, fin slap and tail slap activity not too far out at sea. We finally tore ourselves away to walk back south along the long stretch of Long Reef and Dee Why beaches where locals hung out, swam and surfed. There was a remaining memorial to a well-regarded surfer, Mercury Psillakis, a 57 year old killed by a great white shark here a month ago. I remember being really moved when I saw the paddle-out ceremony on the news, where 1,000 surfers honoured him.

… we got invited on the first Sunday by one of Archie’s carers - Christine - to join her husband Matt and his friend Dave Ward (Wardie) out on their small motorboat to find some whales. The water was quite choppy and we bounced along until we spotted one and then two! Thinking we’d now return back to land, instead, effervescent Matt swept us along in his vortex of enthusiasm on a magical tour of Sydney Harbour’s many inlets, pointing out things of local interest on the way. Picking up Christine, who had now finished her shift, we found ourselves zooming past Sydney Opera House (!), under Sydney Harbour Bridge (!!) and mooring up at Darling Harbour, to get fish and chips (!!!). An extraordinary surprise of a day that will live long in our memories.

… we mooched happily around the local Mall with Stevie on a public holiday Monday. The mall was so pleasant: light and breezy, filled with fountains and plants. The shops had clothes I actually liked (but sadly couldn’t buy) and fish shoes I adored for their hideousness (but didn’t want to buy).

… we went into the city for the weekend - but more of that in a separate note!

… we were kindly driven by Fiona up the coast to quickly see Palm Beach, a suburb north of Dee Why home to some of Sydney's most expensive real estate, including many luxury homes owned by celebrities. And you can see why. It’s a beautiful and secluded setting, surrounded by water on three sides, with stunning beaches and ocean views. It is also the familiar setting for ‘Home and Away’.

Sharing in their colourful lives meant…

… we properly met Archie whom we had only met as a baby many years ago in Edinburgh. Archie is an incredible boy, full of laughter, humour, courage, forceful determination and a sharp intelligence. He melts everyone’s hearts, and it was wonderful meeting some of the warm and brilliant team that Fiona and Stevie have built around him: his carers Sebastian, Paula, Rochelle, Christine, Dani, Christianne, and therapists Ana, and Mel.

The team is needed as Archie has a very rare condition called Anophthalmia causing him to be born with no eyes and Sox2 Syndrome which affects 1:250,000 births. His specific mutation is so rare there is only one other recorded case in the world. Archie has mild hearing loss requiring him to wear hearing aids, a naval gastric tube to feed, severe motor delay and struggles to lift his head up. The multidisciplinary medical and therapeutic support he receives is testament to his parents’ tenacity and the amazing services here.

… we learnt about ways colour can be experienced if you can’t see them. Our very first morning found us watching an amazing art therapy session with Ana and Mel relaying to Archie the concept of colour by associating colours with smells, touch, taste and emotion, before enabling Archie to paint with the colours using his feet. Notable was the use of dog poo for ‘brown’ which Archie happily squeezed in a bag and smelt (luckily no taste for this one), tasting lemons for yellow (which Archie wasn’t quite sure about) and associating red with angry emotions. We now own a very precious painted heart by Archie in orange, yellow and brown: the colours of Australia.

… we ate a lot of Stevie’s incredibly tasty cooking! 😋

… Lilz and Stevie watched the NRL (National Rugby League) final together with the Brisbane Broncos beating Melbourne Storm.

… we drank a scooner or two with some of Stevie and Fiona’s lovely friends at their local: a very typical Aussie sports bar complete with lingerie clad waitresses!

… I got to see the incredible work at NAPA when I joined Rochelle and Archie on Friday morning. NAPA (Sydney’s Neurological and Physical Abilitation Center) provides pediatric therapy to children with neurological and developmental disabilities. I was awestruck by the multidisciplinary approaches it offers, seeing only some of the variety of customised intensive physical, occupational, and speech therapy work. The best thing about the place was its boundless joy and absolute determination to enable.

… we were there when Libby, Archie’s support dog, joined the family. A beautiful gentle black lab, Libby settled into the Innes household immediately and is going to be a much loved addition to the family.

… we joined Stevie and Alba with a run to the pet store for new doggie things, where we bought them two rummy-nosed tetra fish christened ‘Rum and Raisin’ by Alba. These will join Stevie’s other four wee fish in his new larger fish tank.

… we got to join Alba at her trumpet lesson in the cool music school she goes to each week created by interesting musos.

… we walked along Dee Why beachfront one evening with Fiona and Alba to swim in the (refreshing!) local lido. Wonderful they have this on their doorstep: with views across the beach out to the headland.

… we got to see Alba’s high school which she moves up to next year.

… we had a final meal out together at the local Thai restaurant with beach view, followed by enormous ice-creams that dribbled down our fingers and arms as we fought to eat the delicious excess before it all melted.

… we discovered just how incredible Archie is at maths. Fiona showed us how she uses voice-recordable buttons to create multiple choice options for Archie to select after working out mental arithmetic problems Fiona gives him. Archie never gets it wrong and he doesn’t have to use a calculator (unlike us adults).

Indonesia faffage meant we were kept busy…

… getting health checks using our Medicare card. Appointments were easy to get, booked online with a choice of doctor/dentist, and we found the service very efficient and modern. Turns out my arm which has been sore since NZ South Island is due to Tennis Elbow. Lilz’s dental checkup passed with flying colours: phew!

… booking our bikes in for a service. The first general bike store we tried couldn’t fit us in until December! We lucked out however with Ride Through Workshop where Jordan, an experienced cycle tourer himself, fitted us in on Monday and serviced our bikes for half price as there was only a bit of tweaking. They now run like a dream.

… sourcing and packing bikes into bike boxes, with Stevie’s help and then weighing the bike boxes and our kit, and seemingly endless moving things around to get the right distribution across carry-on (7kg) and hold (40kg) allowance across us both, whilst also adhering to what can go in the cabin and what needs to be packed in the hold.

… researching Indonesia: to determine what there is to see that we don’t want to miss, best routes to incorporate these things with the least hillage and traffic, how long the route is likely to take and if it fits into our two-month visa period, and what bus and ferry options there are and do they take bikes. (Frequent fast ferries and trains we found do not which is a nuisance). Also what the best e-sim provider is likely to be, and I’ve booked up the first few days’ accommodation for peace of mind whilst we find our feet.

… repacking our panniers for hot-season use (thanks to our lovely friend Dana for sending our ‘summer’ kit to Stevie’s for us) and packing up our cold-season stuff to send home (thanks to lovely Liam for agreeing to receive and store!).

Now our hearts are full and we hold some truly beautiful memories, we are all set for the ‘next leg’. We fly to the island of Bali, in Indonesia, on Friday 17 October.

To find out more about Archie:

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