Camping at bear Gully

We went camping this year over Australia Day, down to Cape Liptrap Coastal Park.

A beautiful area of the coast just a couple of hours drive from Melbourne.

Lots of rocks for the kids to investigate.

Wildlife too...

Beautiful sunsets...

Some moody weather....

If you want to check out more of my photos you can see them here on the page I wrote specifically about camping at Bear Gully.

Hint: don't camp there over Australia Day, too many bogans!

And here's the 'lil fella on his first day!

More of 2012

Well, the Big Fella is 7 1/2 now, wow. Had a great year at school in 2012, too. 

This was footy day at school.

Passed his orange belt and is now on his green belt.

Enjoyed some time at the Farm.

And fished in the Mighty Goulburn river. 

The Farm is a great place for crafting and creating. No hair cuts happening, though.

A bit of bouldering whilst camping over Christmas.

Uncle Jono came too!

A bit of hiking.

Time well spent in the Australian bush.

More camping planned for the end of January, 2013 is off to a good start.

The great outdoors

We went camping the week after Easter. Remember the Farm? 

The Farm was not in use these holidays and we'd been advised that there were some lovely camping spots around the place AND we could light campfires and dance round naked if we wished seeing as it's private property. All 3000 acres of it.

So we did. Light a campfire that is, not dance round naked. A tad too chilly for that.

We spent the first night in the homestead, seeing as we arrived after dark. The next morning saw us all out on the hill with hubby and his remote controlled airplane.

Then we drove to our recommended campsite (a 4 wheel drive would have been handy here but our trusty old sedan made it), right on the Goulburn river. Being autumn, the weather was perfect for having the campfire burning all day, though we did manage to peel off our fleece jumpers at various times when it almost felt hot.

See those grey clouds in the background? Yup, it rained about 2 minutes later. We had a few short showers that first day but nothing torrential.

After a chilly start the next day,

Exploring we all went. Plenty of wombat holes around and although the kids had us out both nights after dark with torches, no wombats were seen in action. Plenty of fresh wombat poop though, so we know they were there.

Too cold for an actual swim but they still managed to get wet of course. The river was running quite high, so even if it was warmer, I'm not sure they'd actually be swimming.

A bit of afternoon chess, lots of s'mores making, roasting apples, spuds and corn cobs in the embers.
The sun went down by about 7pm and so did we. Apart from wombat hunting that is.

Another chilly morning, not quite a frost, but almost. Who can breathe out the biggest steam cloud?
Listening to the kookaburras and magpies serenade the dawn.

Beautiful countryside

And we got to see the sun rise through the mist.

We spent two nights in the wild and one more night up at the homestead before heading back home. A lovely trip and a first intro for the boys into 'camping in the wild' as we called it. Pooping in a hole, grass in the food and lots of fresh air.

Must do it again soon, though we may wait till close to summer I think...