Farmstay at Margaret River

Finally, a farm stay! At Taunton Caravan Park, which is also an active cattle farm, the kids playground backs onto paddocks of cows, horses and sheep, and we can mark each day's end with the 5pm "Feeding of the Animals". Not unexpectedly, the park is a magnet for travelling families, and our kids are hard to spot amongst scores of raucous pre-teens.
We use the farm as our base for exploring the Margaret River area - after four days we're sorry to leave, but satisfied that we've managed to cram pretty much everything on offer into our stay. The jury is out as to what we loved the most. Hot contenders:
* Sampling our way through the valley of grape and food factories where the grown ups find wine, coffee and nuts... and the kids find cookies, chocolate and fudge. One word for all: Yum.
* Touring the Jewel and Mammoth Caves, each a breathtaking natural wonder of mind boggling proportions.
* Stumbling across a treasure trove of childhood memorabilia in Witchcliffe... including a bundle of vintage Mad and Cracked magazines (of course we snap up the lot).
* Enjoying two enormous scoops each at Millers Icecreamery... then having Jack steal the show with his ability to quote huge chunks of Mad Magazine humour verbatim (Mad having quickly usurped his Simpsons collection).
* Discovering the famous Coweramup bread that is unofficially ranked best in the west... That is, until Sam's new recipe delivers challah on Friday night that pips it at the post to win hands down.
* Watching Jack discover and then master the art of swing jumps... then pass the baton onto Benji, so that by our final day there are two blond heads soaring through the air.
Other worthy mentions include: the meat pie stop in Dunsborough, the "3 kids books for only sixty cents" windfall in Cow Town, the boiler stove marshmallows, the 7-hour rainstorm, and the family-run hedge maze - all delicious in their own way. As to whether there was anything we didn't love, nothing springs to mind. There was that unexpected (and eerily dejavu) episode of "pooze in my undies" during our visit to Happs Winery, but, well - we'll leave that one alone.

5pm Feeding of the Animals. Followed by the 5:15pm Feeding of the Biharys. Dinner time comes early now that the sun sets by 5:30 and we're all knackered and in bed by seven.

The kids enjoy a game of Bull Rush. Here Benji is the nominated bull and the rest of the gang need to race across the length of the jumping pillow without him tagging them. As always, Benji has his bike helmet on, which he now seems to wear from breakfast til bedtime so that he can jump on and off his bike at will.

Jack. Airborne. Again.