ON BEING SINGLE…

We’re back today after 2 nights away in Kalbarri, which is a holiday town about an hour and half drive from home for us.

We camped with two other families.  We were meant to go for 3 nights, but I had to cut it back to 2 as I’ve got a job which requires me to work Saturday morning.

We had a wonderful time, but it was far too short.  So much work involved in packing everything up – getting there, pitching the tent, unpacking – having a fun few nights – then turning around packing up (again) – unpitching the tent and trying to shove everything back into the car.  How is it you take food (which all gets eaten) and yet somehow you seem to have MORE stuff when you come home??

Saturday was so unbelievably hot when we got there.  We nearly melted pitching the tent (which my friends who we camped with all helped with).  The ground was so hot that it was impossible to stand of the floor of the tent in bare feet as the soles of your feet singed!  We think it was 44 degrees that day.  Never have I been more glad to get into my bathers and jump into the pool at the caravan park (and those who know me well know that I’m not much of a one for swimming – and enjoying it! – unless it’s super hot).

Sunday we had a lovely day at two different beaches, then went to this really rough, but cool, BBQ restaurant for dinner.

Kids having fun at the beach.

Then this morning it was pack up time and head home.  I had to have a Nanna nap on our return – I was totally wiped out, mostly due to not enough sleep while we were away. The first night two idiots in the camp next door thought it was fine to sit outside drinking beer and talking until about 2am in the morning!  I had enough in the end and got up and asked them nicely “Please could they stop talking as I really wanted to get to sleep”.  Thankfully they did, but then I lay awake worrying that they were going to try and sabotage my tent or something in retaliation (they didn’t!). The second night we had gale force winds, and I kept drifting off to sleep then jerking awake when a big gust of wind rattled the tent.  Oh dear.

It would have been good to have another few nights so I could actually have had a holiday and relaxed.  Maybe next time.  It was lovely to get away for a little mini break with the kids.

We went to Rainbow Jungle on our way home today, which was wonderful.  It’s a really lovely bird park which has beautiful gardens, gorgeous ponds filled with beautiful water lilies and fish, water features/waterfalls etc.  Angus enjoyed taking a few pics with the camera, although unfortunately a lot were blurry because he stood a bit close to the subjects.  They have a walk-through aviary with lots of Australian parrots flying free.  They are fairly tame and happy for you to get up close while they are eating etc.

The Macaw parrots were amazing – they had 2 of these blue and yellow ones, and also two red ones.  Cheeky things they were too!

Angus really wanted to take this photo of me next to a water feature.  So you get to enjoy the experience of moi in all my post-camping glory!  Noice! 

On a more serious note… this was the first real “holiday” the kids and I have had on our own, post separation.  The boys really rose to the challenge of helping with things – and we managed to completely dismantle the tent on our own today without needing much help (it’s a 9 man tent, so that’s quite an achievement I reckon!).  I did find it hard camping with other families and watching the Mum/Dad thing happening and knowing that my kids are missing out on that.  Yes, they have a great relationship with G and I (on our own) but they’re also missing out on those ‘family’ experiences, which made me sad.  The flip side was that we got to camp in a group situation which made me feel a lot safer, and also made it great for the kids having built-in friends to go along with the holiday experience, and I also had someone to hang out with in the evenings once the kids were in bed.  I’m not sure that I would be ready for us to go camping on our own just yet – but camping with friends in a group seems like a great option for now.

Thanks for stopping by….

F xx