Dubbo and the Farm

Let it be known that I love a road trip and fortunately so does my friend Lisa.  "You must be mad" muttered various friends of ours when we said we were planning on driving to Dubbo (6 hours away) one afternoon with 5 kids in the same car.  However, our kids travel well, we both agree that DVD players are only to be used as an absolutely last resort and we all enjoy a good sing-a-long so what's the problem?  

Dubbo in the rain

We arrived in Dubbo at 9pm only to find that our motel booking was for 24 February - doh!  Fortunately the mistake was with the motel not us and therefore we ended up with a much bigger room for Lisa and her kids at the same price as the smaller one.  I barely dare mention that the reason we chose this particular motel was the fact that it was advertised as being across the road from the golden arches and I'm happy to say that there were no falsities in their advertising.  At 7.45 the next morning all 7 of us were comfortably seated in McDonalds with mountains of pancakes, english muffins, natural yoghurt with fruit compote and coffee - McDonalds has clearly worked on its breakfast menu since I was last there!!  When planning for the trip I had allowed for every eventuality with regards to the weather with the exception of rain and it was bucketing down.  A quick glance at the rain radar suggested that the rain wasn't going anywhere in a hurry but we decided to remain optimistic.  At 8.30am we were at the zoo and investigating transport options.  After much deliberation and changing of minds (with the exception of Tess who point blank refused to ride anywhere under her own leg power) we ended up with bikes for Tom and Hunter and a golf buggy for the rest of us (we were under some kind of delusion that the buggy may provide shelter from the rain).  By the time we had seen the African dogs and the meerkats we were all soaking wet but we refused to be deterred and diligently stopped to look at all the animals for the first kilometre after which we agreed that we would just drive slowly for the remaining 4 kms and be content with whatever we happened to see!  


After the zoo we were in need of lunch and stopped at a shopping centre where we figured we could get lunch and do our food shop for the farm killing 2 birds with 1 stone.  This proved to be a very important lesson for both Lisa and myself.  The shopping centre was heaving (there's clearly not much to do in the country when it's raining) and after spending 10 minutes trying to establish what each child wanted to eat from the myriad of options at the food court we pulled the pin and ended up at McDonalds for the 3rd time in as many meals.  We weren't proud of ourselves but we understand why it does so well even when there are better, healthier options available - when you are in a hurry and need to please 5 children with different tastes you need to choose quickly and not waste a heap of money on food they "might" like.  

Tess with her $5 bike

Tom zooming down the hill

We had another fantastic couple of days at the farm.  It rained quite a bit but the kids didn't care and went out in all weather on their bikes.  Jules headed down to the local tip and found a brilliant bike for Tess for $5.  I love the fact that each time we go up to the farm the kids get that little bit braver and head further away from the farm house on their own.  With their bikes they were all very brave and made regular trips up to the second gate.  Lisa read them chapters from the Secret Seven each evening and so their days were full of meetings and passwords.  Tom came into the house quite despondent at one stage because he'd missed the 12 o'clock meeting and therefore wasn't allowed to be in the society any longer!  

Tess and Floyd

Kids and Craig on the quaddie

Happy, dirty kids

Toasting marshmellows by the fire

Toasted to perfection!

Bose, fire, flanny and beer - what else does one need?

A very green farm with all the recent rain

After our experiences with the yabbies in the Woollondilly river a couple of weeks ago Craig bought himself a yabbie net and we deliberately allowed for extra sausages for the net.  Craig and Jules carefully placed the net in the dam where about 3 years ago we released some shop-bought yabbies.  At 7 the next morning Craig headed out to see what we'd caught - a big fat nothing - the sausage hadn't been touched at all!  Undeterred Craig placed the trap in a different dam only to find the same lack of results the following day.  Time to pay another trip to the yabbie shop.  

Street Machine & Hot Rod Show

Giant bouncy slide

Tom Casanova

On Saturday we went into Kandos for the annual Street Machine and Hot Rod Show.  The boys were amazed by all the fancy cars and a little bit frightened by some of the noises they made.  We did our best to fit in with the locals by buying the kids cool baseball caps to celebrate the occasion.  Sadly the highlight for the kids was the huge bouncy slide but we all had fun!