We’ve already travelled 500 kilometers since we started the trip, and arrived to a little haven called Batemans Bay on the far south coast of New South Wales. Our caravan is parking at one of the relatively upmarket caravan parks – the Big4 – with a pool, tennis courts, mini golf, a jumping pillow and renovated showers. Not something we are planning to do a lot, I suppose the further we go into this trip, it’s going to be more and more bush camping and less and less luxury parks. But you know, you only live once.

On our first day we took the scenic route heading south, passing through a row of little towns, beautiful bays, endless beaches, rock formations and little islands offshore. Not bad at all, although the kids seem to be far more excited when we stopped at a playground for a little play. Later on, we went back to the caravan park to enjoy its facilities. At the pool, our oldest is showing glimpses of swimming, our middle-boy is floating along with his board, and our youngest is just excited to touch the water. Then we had a blast on the jumping pillow, and as we retired to prepare dinner, the kids made new friends playing with the kids on the neighboring site. Good to see other families on the road, and great to see the children getting along so well, as they chant “This is our Caravan Trip”.

The following day was cloudy and cold. We went to the Circus which was incidentally located just a walking distance from the caravan park. The show was really nice, with men and women jumping on and off trapezes in ways you do not want to try this at home… Back at the park we just took our time, had a nap, home schooling and shopping for groceries. Late afternoon it was time to try our new racquets on the tennis court.

As the sun came out the next day, Valentine’s Day, we spontaneously decided to stay for another day. Spent the entire morning at the Animal and Bird Park which turned out to be amazing. We fed the kangaroos, deers and emus (ouch, be careful, they will pinch your fingers!). The kids pat a lovely calm wombat and a mighty diamond python snake. Overall, we’ve seen plenty of Australian wildlife including the amazing koalas and many native birds and parrots. Eventually we retired back to the van for a bit of home schooling (though you may argue the kids have learned a lot more at the animal park), and explored the many attractions at the park – mini golf, tennis and jumping pillow – knowing we won’t be stopping at these expensive parks a lot during the trip. Aussie sausages for dinner and packing up in preparation to move on tomorrow morning.