We woke up to yet more rain and had to put the heater on to try and dry us out a little bit. Rain was forecast all day so we decided to skip school and spend the day exploring areas inland from here. We didn't end up leaving until 11am as the boys had made a great cubby with the next-door neighbour and it seemed mean to pull them away. We took the Bucketts Way route to Stroud, which was full of beautiful old houses and drove on to Dungog a small town surrounded by fields full of cows. We sat and had lunch in the park and kicked the football around for a while before getting back in the car and driving on to Clarence Town. This was a much smaller town then we expected and we had hoped to stop for hot chocolate but nothing was open so we drove back towards Port Stephens instead. We drove to Lime Tree Passage but it was raining too heavily to get out of the car so we decided to head home instead. After a hot chocolate in the van the weather had cleared a bit so we managed a long walk along the beach before having dinner and a night in front of the tv.