Mia Interview

My little Girl has an interview 

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Pump Pump Pump - Cooma Dam

Me and the girls decided it was time for fishing and to try out our new boat. We had previously made plans to carry a boat of some description and this is what we came up with.. Very handy little number and with an electronic motor attached we can buzz along quite quickly without rowing..
Check the girls pumping the boat up

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The Great Camper Damper

When you ask the girls "where does milk come from"? the used to say  .... "from the shops". After showing them some farm life we have tried to re-educate them on the basics.
   Making bread was one of the things we knew would be educational. But first we had to make "FIRE". and without matches or a lighter. We baked some potatoes as well in the coals.
Then mummy kneaded up some dough and away we go!

Sorry for the corny poetry

Lighting the fire with flint steel 

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The Great Damper camper

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Cooma- Marshmallow toasting

03One of the things i wanted to have the girls experience was a campfire and how to make one. Followed by some tasty marshmallow toasting. Check the clip our its prettty cool. 

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Also have a look at the video where i am lighting a campfire without matches or a lighter... Bear Grills style,,

Canberra

Cockington Green

Check out time is 10am and so a quick breakfast and go. packing up was slightly quicker because we are familiarising ourselves quite quickly with all our little tasks that must be done. safety checks and the like. We head off to Cockington Green for our first tourist stop.

In the video you can see the little towns and model buildings throughout this cool little place in Canberra. Each tiny detail is replicated in these unbelievable models. 1/12 the size of the real thing. As we go through to to international area the scale is 1/50 because of the size of these beautiful buildings from around the globe.

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 The girls loved the steam train ride which takes you around the park twice. We had coffee and a quick bite to eat after our walk around.

  Now its time to go a little further to Aunty Beth's home at Nimitabell, Just passed Cooma. (See Map).

 We arrive before 3pm and feel good about not driving for a few days and just coming to grips with having NO FIXED ADDRESS. :)  We take the girls up the paddock where Drew is loading some sheep onto some livestock trucks. Drew & Beth Manage a sheep and cattle farm which we are sure will entertain our girls.

   We decide to set up the caravan with full annex and floor. We want to make this our test run for erecting our new room ad on for the van. We are told we can set up in 15 minutes but this may take some practise. It  took us 1 hour.... But wow it looks good and is very cosy.

  Tomorrow The girls will build a fire with dad and we will go to town for some food supplies. Marshmallows are definately on the list for our campfire fun.

Murray Bridge

The Murray River.  (2 videos)

Up early once again and its pancakes for breakfast to lighten the mood because we are not at a very attractive site when compared to only a few days ago. We drive off in the morning sunshine which is lovely and warm and soon settle in for the drive. The girls are watching a movie and the roads in SA are fantastic. Victoria has the worst roads we have faced on our trip so far. Bumpety bump and boing boing is very frustrating and the towing is difficult to get right and a cruise speed hard to maintain when like this. the new roads make us feel alot better about travelling and i even used the cruise control for the first time. We travel alongside some freight trains which is entertaining for us all and at almost the same speed but then something else comes along. (see video).

Big Boys Toys

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 Murray Bridge soon arrives in our sights and the town is huge with all the businesses that you would expect. For our lunch break and coffee we head to the river side reserve and the kids play on the swings while me and heather work out where to stay for the night. 

Murray bridge arrival

Murray Bridge, bridge

Our Rig

A Snappy little brown duck

Puffing Billy without steam

Those are big wheels

Lily's wheel shot

Little red caboose

A Shy Lily in pink flowers

No Camping

Unfortunately there are no free stay camp grounds here so it is decided to go another 24kms to a place called Mannum. this is where the first ever Murray river paddle boats where made and launched. there is no drinking water but what a lovely little river side camp spot. it overlooks the village on the other side of the river which is quite nice indeed. Two ferry's run 24 hrs a day at this town and there are 10 other ferry's that cross the Murray at their towns all along this popular Australian river.

Noisy Neighbours 

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View to the hills behind us.

View from our camp- Mannum By night

Early morning surprise

   We go for a crossing with the ferry and a look around the town. An ice cream shop is not in town and so its ice cream on a stick for the girls. Some shopping is done and we cross the ferry again to go back to camp.
earlier that day i had thrown my Yabbie trap into the river just to see what might crawl in and to my surprise a fresh water yabbie was caught. Aha! Bait! there might just be some fish in the Murray worth Catching. Me and Lily dug up some worms and sat by the river that afternoon with a line in. We did get a nibble or two which is a good sign that with the right bait i might just be able to snare a yellow Belly or better still the prized Murray cod. These things can grow up to 1.8 meters but i am not getting my hopes up with my fish catching record so far. Dinner time and settle in for the night.

Day 1 - Bon Voyage!

DAY 1

Leaving Kel & Pete's

After staying our first night at our good friends Kelly & Peter, we set off for first destination, Canberra.

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The family are all packed in and cruizing

Our goal is to reach Canberra with enough time to visit Cockington Green, A collection of miniature towns and settings from around the world. Unfortunately as we approached Canberra it started to rain and so we decided to make the visit in the morning if we could park our huge rig in their car park.
A cold stop to snap the ACT Sign

Chilly Stop for a photo

We pulled into the "Canberra Motor village" and for our first van park we couldn't drive the van in the normal way because the van park was having some upgrading done. Therefor the van had to be reversed into position 'all the way'. Luckily Wayne's history with towing boats and box trailers paid off and the job of parking the van was spot on. The girls were very excited and Poppy & Nanna Mal where there waiting for us.

Mia at the front gate

We decided to have dinner in town and get a good night sleep in preparation for the following day at Cockington Green. (weather permitting).
All in all a good first day to our many months of travelling.


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