Mountain Adventures

My brother Eden is building a house near Cradle Mountain at the moment, so when Steph told us she was going to take their kids up there for the day and camp over night, we decided to join her, before school goes back next week.  It's been a tough week and Simone could tell, so the night before she rang to see what I thought about dropping off Kobe on the way.  I laughed and said that I think her five kids were enough, but she told me they were going for a drive up to Ulverstone to see Simon's parents and he could just join in on the fun and go to the park with them.

I really didn't have the energy to deal with him and knew he wouldn't be keen on walking and would be just like last week yelling 'carry me, carry me' the whole way, so told Simone it would be awesome if she was keen to have him.   I cracked up laughing as I was leaving with Jay and Harri as she was lined up with all six kids and her washing up gloves on :)   Kobe was soooo excited about hanging out with them all day, but on the way there he kept saying 'what's bush walking Mum?'. I reminded him it was like when we went to Alum Cliffs and you walk through the bush and look at different things and then he said 'oh yeah! Me go to Jonty's house!', as he thought it would be more fun there.

The kids were so excited and we all came prepared with cold weather gear, but it was a beautiful sunny day and we ended up all stripping off after a while.

Linc is obsessed with Jay and wanted to hold his hand all day long. It was very cute.

We had to park the cars at the Visitors Centre and catch the shuttle bus. While we were waiting Chloe made me laugh as she said 'Aunty Lisa! Aren't you going to take a photo of our feet!?'.  I told her I would and told her she would be a great photographer as she could think of things that would be a great photo. While I was taking it she kept telling Maddie and Kelsea 'you don't have to smile as it's just going to be a photo of our feet'.

We decided to do the Enchanted Walk which was a lovely flat walk for the kids, with some beautiful scenery.

It was boardwalk the whole way and I remember saying to Aaron that it would've been a good one to try with the boys as it would've suited Noah's wheelchair.  We never got there though.



The girls were keen on finding what kind of plants there were in a book that Becky had brought along.

Along the walk there were a few of these little tunnels for the kids to go through, which they loved.

At the end of the walk we spotted a wombat. Chloe was so excited and yelled at everyone to come and take a look.

We then jumped back on the bus and went up to Dove Lake for a look before we headed home.  Everyone is always saying that you are lucky if you get a nice day up there with clear skies, so we must be the lucky ones as last time we were up there a couple of years ago, we had a similar day, even though it was later in the year.

We ended up walking just to the boat house.

The kids were so great all day and loved just being together.

It was nice and relaxing just being with Jay and Harri.  Thanks Simone for giving us some 'quiet' time together. We were lucky to have such a beautiful day to enjoy.

We went back to where Eden is building the house before heading home. He had a fire lit, ready for them to camp there and was telling us that he spent some time fishing in the creek there and was telling us about the fish that got away :)   The kids also had fun toasting marshmallows on the fire.

Harri decided to go and collect firewood and kept coming back with more and more, but had to enlist his cousins to help him with this big piece. He was loving throwing more wood on the fire and was in tears when it was time to leave. Uncle Eden told him that one day we will have to go camping with them, which he was keen about.  We have never actually been camping as a family, as anyone who knows Aaron, knows that he hated camping.  He would much rather be somewhere that had four walls, a TV and DVD players and McDonalds within 5 km :) It was actually impossible to go camping with Noah anyway, so Aaron did have a good excuse for us to never go on a family camping trip, which he was happy about.  I wish of course that it was still impossble to go camping, but told the boys that we will now have to plan a camping trip together and have some new adventures together, that we weren't able to do before.