Family Holiday - Mount Gambier - Day 5

Day 5 started out fairly slowly. We got up, had breakfast and got ready for the day. Our friends were heading back to Adelaide that morning so we said goodbye to them before heading out for the day.

We headed towards Port MacDonnell but before we got there we stopped at Mount Shank which is an extinct volcano. We climbed lots and lots of stairs to get to the top. After all of our walking over the last few days our legs were pretty dead, but the kids were excited about seeing inside the volcano.

After a couple of rest stops we finally made it to the top.

 Here is what the view from the top looked like. This is looking into the extinct volcano.

Lachlan really wanted to climb down into the volcano so Buzz volunteered to go with him. The girls legs were getting too tired even though Haylie threw a tantrum about not getting to go down as well.

This is the path on the way down.

Here he is at the bottom of the volcano.

When they got back up to us we headed back down the outside of the volcano back to our car. We then continued on towards Port MacDonnell.

There are lots of places to pull the car over and look at the view off the cliffs and small coves/beaches. It was pretty cold and windy on the day we did this. We slowly made our way to Cape Northuberland.

Amie was very excited to get her picture taken here!

Crazy!!

Apparently this is the most southerly point of South Australia so we had to get a picture.

The sign said that Fairy Penguins live around here but they were all out fishing for the day and we didn't want to wait around until dark to see them come home for the night.

We then went back to Port MacDonnell to have some lunch and to have a skate and the skate park that we had driven past.  Lachlan then wanted to play on the beach or in the sand dunes for a little while. So we drove back past Cape Northuberland and found a stretch of beach all to ourselves. Lachlan headed straight for the dunes and the girls started collecting shells and playing in the water. The water was freezing but it didn't stop them. We were there playing for about an hour. I put the long lens on the camera so I could stay far away from the kids but get in nice and close with the camera. I love taking pictures like this because the kids don't even know I'm taking their picture so they act natural. Here are just a few of the many, many pictures that I took.

It was getting late in the afternoon and they had all gotten a bit wet and cold so we headed back to our cabin in Mount Gambier. The kids quickly changed before heading to play on the jumping pillow for the rest of the afternoon. I started to get our stuff packed up and organised a bit before just relaxing and hanging out. Once it got dark we had to go a pull the kids away from the jumping pillow. They had made friends with some other kids and were having a blast but it was dark and we needed to get some dinner before finishing off our packing.

On the way into Mount Gambier of our very first day Haylie had seen the playground at the local McDonalds and begged us to let them go there to play so that's where we went for our last night of our holiday. It was a really big play area with a very tall slide. The kids had lots of fun.

We then headed back to our cabin to get ready for bed and make sure that everything was organised for us to leave in the morning.

Family Holiday - Mount Gambier - Day 4

Well . . . . I got a little distracted and life got crazy but I really want to finish writing about our family holiday.

So day 4 started with Buzz running to get some yummy hot chocolates. We then headed back to the skate park for about an hour. The kids loved it. It had a great section for the kids and they just loved it.

We then headed a little bit out of town to try and find a couple of sinkholes that we had heard about. The first one was called Hell's hole sinkhole. We turned down this dirt road but didn't see any signs or anything pointing to it. We ended up missing it and heading to the next thing we had planned to see. We had some trouble finding the next sinkhole as well but after and couple of u-turns we finally found it. It is called the Caroline sinkhole. It was huge and very impressive.

After that it was back into the car to head to the Princess Margaret Rose caves. We headed back towards the main road still along this dirt road. It got pretty bad before we got to the main road again considering we weren't in a 4WD.

We stopped in this little town called Nelson for some lunch and a play at a small playground. After that we headed to the caves. We had heard that they are some of the prettiest caves around. We had to go down a bunch of stairs to get into the cave. It was very different to the one we had seen in Narracorte. This cave was very long a narrow. It had lots of these big columns in it. The tour guide didn't give us much time to take photos so Buzz just managed to snap a few while she was talking.

After the cave tour we looked around a bit before grabbing an ice cream and getting back into the car. This time we headed to Piccaninne Ponds.  It's basically a big sinkhole that is below the water table so it is full of water. You can't really see much as it just looks like some wetlands but we went out onto this pontoon and the water was so clear that you could see a fair way under the water. It was amazing! We then went to where the ponds run into the ocean. We could believe how much and how fast the water was flowing. It had craved a small cliff into the sand. We spent some time walking along the top and pushing the sand into the water.

After hanging out on the beach for a little while we drove back to Mount Gambier. We let the kids mess around on the jumping pillow again while we waited for it to get dark. The kids were very excited to go back and feed the possum's. This time we were taking some friends with us. I took the good camera with us this time so that I could hopefully get some pictures. It was still really dark down there but there were a few possum's hanging around near this light so I get a few.

There seemed to be more possum's around the second night or at least more that were closer to the ground. 

Haylie loved to feed them.

It didn't take long for us to run out of grapes and we were starting to get hungry ourselves so we headed off to get some dinner before heading back to the cabin for the night.

Amie's 10th Birthday!

Ten years ago today my little baby girl was born. She was born right on her due date with Buzz arriving home from New Zealand only hours before she was born. She had the cutest little pink lips and Buzz was smitten with her right away. She had this squeal on her when she cried but luckily that didn't last very long. We got very used to hearing her cry over the next few months. It took the doctors awhile to figure out what the issue was but once that was sorted she was such a happy and content baby.

Just a few minutes old.

1st Birthday.

2nd Birthday. 

She loved to dress up and play pretend. She was a very girly girl and still is. Even though she had no hair she loved to wear headbands.

3rd Birthday.

Still not much hair but still loves to dress up.

4th Birthday.

Haylie was only a few weeks old so we had a very simple party and paid someone to make her cake. At the time she was going through her Dora phase!

5th Birthday!

I went a bit crazy with this party. I spent hours making the cake, decorating the house and getting a face painter. She had so much fun. I love the grin!

6th Birthday.

My crazy, silly girl. I've had to double check this picture multiple times to make sure that it was Amie and not Caitlyn. they look so much alike in this picture.

7th Birthday.

Amie with her Best Friend Emma.

8th Birthday.

Here she is all ready for her 8th Birthday party. She looks so grown up in this picture.

9th Birthday. I can't believe that this was just last year.

She loves fashion and was so excited to have boots like mine.

10th Birthday

My Baby has grown into such a beautiful young women. And she has definitely grown this year. She is so tall now and loves to steal Grandma's shoes and wear some of my clothes.

I love her so much and I'm so grateful to be her Mum!

Happy 10th Birthday Amie!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo