4th week of the school holidays and a camping trip

We've had another busy week of school holidays with trips to see Puss in Boots (excellent fun) and Happy Feet 2 (disappointing), an excursion to the dinosaur museum and a double play date at our house which included kite-flying, jamming on the keyboard and guitar and a nail-biting game of Crazy Cash Monopoly!  So I did a fairly good job of keeping Tom out of the sea/pool without going mad but I was very relieved when we set off on our camping trip on Friday lunch time.  


Together with the Mennies, Andrew and Marianne we set off for Woollondilly River Station which is a private camp ground on the edge of the Woollondilly River approximately 3 hours from Sydney (it actually doesn't feel that far away but there is a very steep, very winding road for the last 45 kms which takes about an hour to get through).  The camp ground had been recommended by Andrew and it sounded similar to Coolendell so we were anxious to check it out as an alternative and I'm happy to say that we were not disappointed.  It's a lot smaller than Coolendell with the advantage of much fewer people - in our allotted spot we couldn't see any other tents and could only rarely hear the children in the neighbouring camp spot.  We camped right on the edge of the river which was teeming with wildlife - big fish, turtles, yabbies, all sorts of birds and we had a very exciting moment when 2 water rats went racing past us whilst we were looking for yabbies by torchlight.  


As is always the case when camping time slows down and there is never any rush to do anything.  The kids swam for hours, made up races (including the girls giving Darcy piggy backs which she loved), went blackberry picking, lay like lizards on rocks in the sun, made damper, played Puss in Boots and Star Wars whilst the adults tended the fire (which wasn't entirely necessary from a warmth perspective although it never really feels like camping unless there is a fire), went on bush walks, helped with the damper making, idly chatted and read books - a perfect weekend for everyone!  

Our first drink once camp had been set up

View of our camp from the other side of the river

Kids dinner time

Making damper rolls

Running races

Blackberry haul

Dirty but happy boys

A well tended fire

One of Tom's favourite "people"