* We've explored three Aussie towns with gusto - Port Fairy, Portland (yesterday) and Mt Gambier (today). A priate ship, a cable-car ride, a war museum, a train museum, two sink holes, and a volcano - the stuff that homeschooling legends are made of.
* We're here in Mt Gambier at the perfect time of year to see the Blue Lake in all it's bright blue glory. Had we visited between May to November, it would have been much more tricky explaining to disappointed kids why the Blue Lake was actually grey.
* No bedwetting accidents OR middle of the night sprints to the toilet ... yet. Though there has been a rather unfortunate poo-in-the-bathers incident involving the youngest Bihary after snacking on one too many pitted prunes. "But mum, I TOLD you I needed to go toilet...."
* We're told that that the dismal Melbourne weather that hitchhiked a ride with us will be disembarking here at Mt Gambier and sunny days await. Not a moment too soon, since we only packed two jumpers per child and they're both slowly being covered in tomato sauce after enjoying BBQ dinners every night this week.
* The Big 4 caravan parks pitch themselves as a kids paradise - with jumping pillows, swimming pools, games rooms and bike-and-scooter-riding allowed anywhere in the park. With so much to keep the kids occupied and independant, we're discovering they're a parents paradise as well.
* We've managed to find room for all our books. Our travel books, our story books, our reference books, our puzzle books, our hard cover books, our scrap books, our notebooks, our comic books, our e-books AND our audio books. Now we just need to find the time to read.
* We've met another family from regional Victoria who are also starting out on, as Rikki says, "a trip around Os-trail-ya". Dad's a builder, mum's in education, daughter's 5 and son's 3. And there we were, feeling so unique.
* The kids are yet to discover the fully functioning TV in the caravan... with St Kilda in the semi finals tonight, the same cannot be said for Budge.
* We've even "made a little challah, we made it all ourself, we put it in the oven, we put it on the shelf..." A few more weeks and we'll be giving Glicks a run for their money. Shabbat Shalom to all.
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| Rikki keeps warm waiting for Budge's coffee to boil. |
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| All aboard Portland's famous cable tram. (Midway through our ride, a channel nine crew came to film a segment for some travel show. As expected, the tram got performance anxiety and stalled. And stalled. And stalled. Our 12 o'clock ride that was meant to be for 1 hour... didn't see us back at our caravan for lunch until 3.) |
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| Three little Biharys at the base of the AMAZING sinkhole at Mt Gambier. |
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| Last Friday we squeezed 45 people into our home for a farewell Shabbat dinner. This Friday it was enough of a challenge to squeeze 5 of us into our caravan. Note the very impressive looking challah home-baked by Sam Glick. |
