7 January 2012 - Back to the zoo

Back to the zoo for day 2 of our pass. A minor accident threatened to ruin the day with Lachie believing his playground capabilities to be far in excess of his age and falling from a 6 foot drop while trying to get onto a swing bridge. Whilst he landed head first, the playground was covered in sand, no doubt strategically placed for similar eventualities. A trip to the first aid station and a clean up was all that was required although he did become a minor celebrity around Dubbo zoo with most of the morning crowd queuing for tickets seeing the blood streaked toddler being rushed up to first aid. A guy commented to me at the campsite later in the day 'were you the people at the zoo this morning?' when he noticed Lachie's now egg shaped forehead and associated battle scares.
We managed to make it in time for the morning feeding of the giraffes and this, combined with a sympathy icy pole, sorted Lachie out. It did take most of the day before he was back to his normal self.

We also took in the feeding of the hippos and the Galapagos tortoises before heading for our picnic lunch. With Lachie asleep and Clare and Emily off to see the monkeys, I managed to doze off under a tree in the park for about 30 mins, what a luxury!

The afternoon was topped off with a trip to the Village Bakery (highly recommend), a swim in the pool and a bit of lawn footy with the kiddies.

Hopefully we will actual managed to get some MTB action in tomorrow so best get off to bed so we have some hope of getting to the tracks before it gets too hot.

6 January 2012 - Dubbo Zoo with Dora

Not sure who was more excited about the trip to Dubbo Zoo, but I think a great day was had by all.

To begin with our tent has thankfully withstood the savage storms of last night pretty well. Bar a few water pockets on the roof, we came through unscathed.  I wish we could say the same for the packing for the zoo, but man have we got to get more organised. Getting 2 kids, 2 bikes and food, swimmers etc for the day together took rather a long time to say the least, but we still made the zoo, a little frazzled before 9am.

We hired a bike for Nick with a kiddie trailer so his beloved Lynskey was left on the car. And the kids were over the moon with the trailer, despite Lachie really wanting a car. We were relieved afterwards we took the bike option as you can see so much more and the kids can view the animals without having to get out each time.

Nick has sworn to burn Em's tutu. It is the closest thing she has to a princess dress now we are travelling, and it nearly did his nut today getting the seatbelt on her in the trailer. Here's counting how many days til Em comes crashing down to earth and starts wearing shorts! Nick has a tough battle on his hands - good luck to him. Fare thee well pink tutu.

The big hits were Ollie the Otter, and Dora the Rhino, though that said, Lachie loved the baby koala. Both Em and Lachie are dying for a cuddle of a koala, so no doubt we will have to find one on our travels, but today was not the day.

Em has taken to bossing poor Lachie big time - not sure where she gets this from.....I guess her Daddy! Anyway, I like this shot of the ostriches as it reminded me of Em bending Lachie's ear as she does so well!

We will head back to the Zoo tomorrow to finish off the trail and see the few animals we missed today. Think we'll opt for the lazy-mans option tomorrow and drive.

What has happened to the flies?

We have had 3 picnic lunches and 2 BBQ dinners in Central Western NSW over the last few days and have not been bothered by flies. Our day at the zoo was also 'fly free' despite the amount of dung evident in the enclosures. I am not complaining, but am certainly intrigued about the lack of flies. It might be worth a query to the CSRIO.

5 January 2012 - Day 1 in Dubbo

On Thu 5 Jan we started our Dubbo visit with a trip around the old Dubbo jail. This was excellent and even the kids enjoyed running around the building and looking into the cells. I had expected we would have to leave after 15 minutes with them bored to tears but we managed to spend a good couple of hours wandering around.

We lunched in the park behind the Tourist Information Centre and found the obligatory swings for the kiddies. Em and Lachie will definitely be swing and park connoisseurs by the end of this trip. In the afternoon we headed across to Wellington to visit the caves. Nice set up, although the caves themselves are showing the signs of wear and tear from the amount of tourists. Outside the caves we found a small herd of Shetland ponies with a few foals among them. This was probably the highlight of the day!

Before heading into the caves, it was getting black with storm clouds. The first drops of rain started as we got back to the car. It started raining heavily in Wellington but it looked like it was OK over Dubbo direction as we headed back. Unfortunately a different storm cell had hit Dubbo and the tent did not escape the rain. We had not put the side covers of the tent down and expected everything to be soaked when we got back. Luckily we managed to get away with a just a wet pillow and a sheet on Em's bed. Some more heavy showers hit later in the evening and we were better prepared. With the sides of the tent down, it was quite pleasant listening to the rain on the canvas and overall it coped pretty well.

4 January 2012 - Departure Day

We managed to get away from Sydney at 8.45am on Wed 4 January 2011. We headed across the Blue Mountains and stopped for lunch at Orange. We arrived in Dubbo at around 3.30pm and started the interesting task of unpacking and setting up the tent for only the second time, having had one practice run at the farm way back in November. Plenty of lessons on both the tent setting up and packing fronts that we will learn from. With access to the inside of the trailer a little limited, nearly everything, whether required or not, needs to be pulled out from the inside of the trailer. This has already made us start to think hard about what we really need and what can stay in the trailer!
Yet again keeping Em and Lachie entertained for more than 3 minutes unsupervised proved a challenge. With the proximity of the swimming pool and bouncy pillow, Clare was forced to take the kiddies away while I finished setting up.

If you ever travel to Dubbo and intend to camp, make sure you bring a block hammer and heavy duty tent pegs, the ground is like granite! Anyway we eventually got things sorted out and will aim to get quicker as we get more experience.

3 January 2012 - Departure is nigh!

Finally, and I mean FINALLY, after 9 days of hectic packing, we have broken the back of groundhog day and are very close to project go live - we leave Sydney tomorrow.

The trusty steed is packed - nearly. Just 2 more bikes, the fridge, esky, beer, wine, kids and ourselves and we will be on the road out of Sydney....YAY!

Slight change to project plan due to delays so we head straight to Dubbo and miss the wine of Mudgee. I am pretty confident we will make up for it when we hit Adelaide in a couple of weeks for the Tour Down Under....and a little wine tasting on the side.

The weather is looking pretty hot out west, and heatwaves in Adelaide and Victoria for now, but fingers crossed it cools to a nice "Irish Summer" before we get there.

Few glasses of bubbly to big farewell to Concord....and fingers crossed we don't forget anything we need tomorrow!

Just about finished

I'm not sure packing up the house and getting the trailer ready for our trip was the most pleasant few days I have experienced, but it is all done now and off to Dubbo in the morning. I believe the caravan park we are staying at has a brand new 'bouncy pillow' for the kiddies. Lachie has become obsessed with 'bouncy pillows' despite having never been on one in his life. Looking forward to the zoo and the Dubbo gaol.