Lightening Online

As promised, here are a few more photographs from our recent holiday.

Australian Institute Of Sport

This was enjoyable although in my mind was expensive for what you got. It’s supposed to be a 90 minute tour but our tour guide finished early so we ended up with only a little over an hour for our $40-something investment.

The Sportex section was great fun but we didn’t get enough time to do everything there and I felt they could have at least taken us back there for the final 20 minutes. It wasn’t a place you could spend whatever time you liked in, you only had the amount of time allowed as part of the tour.

It was fun though. Here are Lleyton and Singstar Princess on the winners podium that is part of the Sportex section at the Institute of Sport.

Space Centre - Tidbinbilla

One of the great things about Canberra was how many places you didn’t have to pay admission for. The Space Centre was one of them. We were able to see what Space food looks like (not very tasty looking!!!) as well as many other interesting displays and exhibits. It was fairly small but well worth the visit.

Here are the kids in front of a remote control buggy like those used on the moon. Lleyton is pretending to be in zero gravity.

Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve

Tidbinbilla is a little way out of Canberra so we packed up a picnic lunch and headed off for the day. The Space Centre in the morning then onto the Nature Reserve for lunch and a look around. Things weren’t very sign posted at the reserve and we were rather disappointed with the lack of animals we could see from the picnic area. Thankfully, we decided to ask for directions inside the shop, only to discover we weren’t even IN the reserve as such. In fact, there were much nicer places to picnic had we had a clue (which we obviously didn’t).

Anyway, it was a rather hot day but we did manage to see a few animals. Here is the koala Farmboy spotted. There were a couple of other families there who would have gone home without seeing a Koala if it weren’t for his keen eyes.

I was most excited that we also got to see a Platypus. I’ve never seen one before. The kids were great and kept very quiet while we watched. Unlike the 2 gentlemen that were there as we were leaving. Perhaps no-one had told them to watch quietly?

Floriade

Floriade was free to get into but you could certainly have parted with some money whilst there if you weren’t careful. It was hot and we decided to buy the kids an ice cream and the cheapest we could get were $1.50 Paddle Pops. It makes me mad things are so expensive at events like this. Is it really necessary?

There were some great flowers to see though and I couldn’t help but take some pics of tulips that match my blog.

There are some more pics of Floriade on Lightening’s Garden.

National Museum

The National Museum was a little different to other museum’s we have been to. Because it focuses mainly on Australian History, a lot of the exhibits are more modern than what we’ve come across in other museum’s (which have old bones and artifacts from around the world).

We didn’t have time to see all of it but the things we saw were very interesting. I was particularly taken by this caravan, obviously built with me in mind. Too bad they no longer make caravan’s in pink.

Sir Donald Bradman Museum, Bowral, NSW

One of my brothers lives in Sydney so we arranged to meet for a picnic lunch at Bowral which is approximately half way between Canberra and Sydney. Lleyton was particularly interested in having a look through the museum there. By that stage of the holiday, we were feeling rather “spent” and so instead of paying almost $40 for the family to have a look through, we sent him on his own (costing us only $6).

Here he is in front of a statue that is outside the museum (cameras aren’t allowed inside the museum):

I hope that gives you a glimpse into our time away. I’m already missing being away in the caravan (life is so much simpler than being at home) and can’t wait to head away again. With harvest fast approaching, I think Christmas/January will be the next time we get to use it.

Canberra is a great place to take kids for a holiday. I can highly recommend it to anyone contemplating it.

I thought you might enjoy a select few of the photographs taken on our holiday. I had planned to write more about the attractions we visited (and may well still) but my illness has thrown most plans for this week out the window.

Gotta start with a snap of the new caravan. I have done a video tour for you - I just need to figure out how to get it onto the computer and then onto the blog. In the meantime, here’s a shot of the van - the kids look excited, don’t they.

Here we are with our Snowman on our much waiting for visit to the snow. By the time this photo was taken, Singstar Princess was already struggling with the cold. We didn’t really have the right clothing for the snow (ie boots that wouldn’t allow the snow in to get the socks wet) so it was good we were there at the end of the season when it wasn’t quite as cold and wet. In fact, we only just made it to see snow before it melted in this particular spot. They had 90cm when we left home but by the time we got there it had almost all melted due to rains. But we had enough for the kids to see it, touch it and play in it, which was all we needed for this trip.

Here we are on top of the world, on the top of Parliament House. I didn’t actually know you could go up on the roof. It’s was so beautiful up there!

This seat at the Dinosaur Museum just cracked me up. It seems appropriate to share it for Smiley Saturday:

I have quite a few more I was planning on sharing but my internet connection has been playing up a LOT and I’m concerned that if I don’t publish this, it won’t get published today. I’ll attempt to add more to this post a little later so I hope you’ll come back and check. If I can’t, I’ll do another post in a day or so with some more pics for you.

Happy Smiley Saturday all. I hope you’ll choose to join us this week.

To celebrate the fact that our caravan is almost ready to be picked up, I started our new family “travel” blog yesterday.

I’d always planned to set up a blog that the kids could write on during our big trip. The classrooms at school all have internet access and interactive whiteboards and I thought a blog would be a perfect way for them to keep in touch with their peers while we’re away.

As we’ll be away for an entire school term, the kids schooling is a factor we’ve considered as part of our trip. Our first choice will be to keep them enrolled in their current school and work closely with their teachers to cover the essential curriculum and make use of the natural teaching opportunities the trip provides. I have plenty of ideas on things we can do as part of the trip and the blog is one of them.

We have the support of the school Principal and Deputy Principal in theory but will need to get the final okay from the Education Department next year. I can’t see them saying no. Most educational professionals support family travel as a valuable educational experience. In my mind it makes the most sense to be able to work with their teachers to cover the basics in literacy and numeracy that they’ll miss while we’re gone. If for some reason we’re knocked back, we’ll be going anyway.

So, back to the blog. My thinking with the blog is that it combines communication with literacy and information technology skills. We’ll also be doing some digital photography, including editing photographs and uploading them to the blog. I also have some thoughts on some basic small business and financial skills if we can find a sponsor for the blog.

The blog, 3 Kids And A Caravan, will also become our record of our big trip. I still intend to blog the trip here on this blog but this blog is MINE whereas the family blog will be for everyone to post their thoughts and experiences on.

While it’s main intention is the big trip, I thought it would be fun to start from right now, tracking the kids reactions to getting the caravan and our first trip away in it.

Singstar Princess wrote her first blog post last night. It was so cute and she was very excited. She chose the pen name “Shell-Bell” for the blog.

I’ve also got a great picture that Trailer Boy has drawn of the car and caravan which I’m hoping to load a copy of onto the blog. He’ll be known as TJ on the blog.

I’m hoping you’ll have time to go and take a peak and perhaps subscribe via a feedreader or via email (both options are up). There’ll be a few posts go up over the next month or so but things may then be a little sporadic until we go away in the caravan again.

The call came today. Out of the blue and much earlier than expected based on our most recent correspondance.

THE CARAVAN IS HERE!!!!

Just when we’d resigned ourselves to not making it away in time to see snow.

IT’S HERE!!!!

It sort of seems surreal.

It’ll take them a week to get the Annex sorted and some other bits and pieces done.

Then we can pick it up.

I think I had started to believe it was never going to happen.

Because I can’t quite get this to sink in.

Perhaps it’ll seem more real when I can actually see it. And we drive away with it behind us. Or perhaps when we actually SLEEP in it.

Guess I’d best get on and start planning our inaugural trip.

Our caravan is soon to hit the production line!!!! How excitement.

We ordered it back in March but to be honest it all still feels a little bit surreal. I don’t think it will seem fully “real” until we actually pick it up. Although I imagine even then we’ll be pinching ourselves for a while.

The arrival of our caravan will be the first tangible evidence that our dream of taking our children on a 3-month caravanning trip is indeed going to come to fruition.

It is now LESS THAN A YEAR until we leave.

In other words, this time next year we’ll be GONE!

Ooh, now I’m getting excited.

Ever had one of those “far off in the distance dreams” that suddenly becomes a “not so far off in the distance” dream?

This trip was little more than a “pipe dream” that I talked about with Farmboy long before we even had children. Over time it has gained momentum. We met a couple who had actually DONE this with their children. I am SO grateful to this guy (who is also a farmer). His advice to Farmboy was fabulous.

“Don’t wait until you can afford to do it”, he told him. “Decide you’re going to do it and MAKE it happen”.

That was 5 or so years ago and Farmboy has never looked back from that moment. The dream became a “maybe, one day” type dream to a “we ARE going to do this”.

From there we started to look into the logistics of making the trip happen.

One of those logistics was finding a caravan that fitted a family of 5.

Not an easy feat in this day and age of the “grey nomad“. So many of the caravans we looked at were built for only 2 people.

Our search started with second-hand caravans and the very occasional van that was built for more than 2 people seemed to be snapped up so quickly that it was difficult to find much at all. Those we did find were ancient, heavy and looked like monstrosities to tow.

So we started looking new and that was when we came across a couple of brands where the beds opened up at the ends and closed away again for travelling. There are a number on the market now and after much deliberation we settled on the Jayco Expanda.

The only thing the Jayco Expanda DIDN’T have was a solid roof over the expanded beds (as shown in the image above).

We liked everything else about it though. The fibreglass exterior (rather than aluminium), the way it felt so spacious inside (compared with similar models in other ranges), the fact that it’s mostly Australian made with Australian materials. As an added bonus, it was also cheaper.

So we settled on a canvas roof. Not a huge deal given we’re used to travelling with our camper trailer which is all canvas (see image below).

* image courtesy of www.expresstoolsandcamping.com.au/cavali5.jpg

That’s not actually ours but it’s pretty similar to what we have.

My biggest thing was I wanted a kitchen and cupboards for such a long trip. Camping style is fine for a few days or even weeks but not for 3 months!

Anyway, just after we ordered our caravan, we had a phone call from the company saying they’d developed a hard top model and would we like to upgrade.

It meant parting with a few extra thousand dollars (which we hope to recoup down the track when we sell) and having to wait a little longer for our caravan to be built.

But it also meant a tick in ALL the boxes. We didn’t have to “settle” after all. Awesome! (as my 4 year old would say)

And so the waiting game began.

They couldn’t give us a date (other than approximate) because they had to build all the older models first.

Our original delivery date was expected to be around now.

Our new estimated delivery date (as of today) is sometime in September.

I just hope it’s ready before the snow season finishes.

Because we were planning our first trip in it to include taking the kids to see snow (not staying at the snow but within a day trips distance).

In some ways it’s finally feeling more REAL.

We’re getting a caravan. WOOT!!! They’re about to start building OUR caravan. Ours! Just for us!

Well, ours unless we run out of money and have to sell it.