Mid-winter skies...

After all the fun we had in Bathurst, we took a weekend off last week to try and recuperate (and clean), though it does seem that all that cleaning resulted in both girls suffering from a cold or flu for most of the week. 

To the extreme that Claire needed to spend a day off school, and came to work with dad to experience a day of working in the City.  It seems she thinks it all good... plenty of good food, trips to the cafe and sweets.  She's all set to start her working life now.

This weekend, we spent Saturday morning getting our car window fixed, and visiting grandma & grandad who've just come back from a holiday in Singapore.  We then spent most of the evening at the Bastianon's enjoying a shabu-shabu feast.

Sunday, we thought we'd have a nice relaxing day, enjoying the nice blue sky while we could.  So we headed out to Dural to play Putt Putt.

After Putt Putt, and some lunch in a local cafe, we decided we hadn't quite had enough of the blue skies yet, so we drove over to Maroubra to further our relaxing day.

The best thing about beaches in winter is you get almost the entire beach to yourself!

After the beach, we went into Darling Harbour to meet some family from Surabaya, who are visiting for a short holiday... 

Artisans Park | July 2015

This past weekend has been quite a busy one for the Beaver clan.  We wanted to get away during the school holidays, and have been looking for something a little different, and we found something great!

We headed out on Friday morning towards Bathurst… The journey was only slightly delayed by the Lolly Bug near Lithgow, before heading onto a large playground in Bathurst.

We then took a customary lap around Mount Panorama, before exploring the National Racing Museum… where the girls picked out their favourite car, and mummy chose out hers (the white one).

Though this was fun, it wasn’t quite our destination.

Our destination, Artisan Park in Turondale, home to a 1949 London double-decker bus…parked precariously on the hillside (at over 1000m above sea level).  This was to be our home for the weekend!

Friday afternoon was a time for exploring our bus and surrounds, including a number of sculpture items (rocket ship and motor bike amongst others).  For those who many be curious, the bus featured beds upstairs, a small kitchen area and nice large fireplace downstairs, and a bathroom just behind the drivers area.  Interestingly, there are no blinds in the toilet/shower…so you wouldn’t want anyone to be wondering around…or pretending to drive the bus at the wrong time.

It was quite amazing on both Friday afternoon, and Saturday morning, to be entirely within the clouds, having driven up into the clouds on Friday!

We did get about an hour of clear sky, where we saw more stars than we’ve ever seen, there is nothing quite so clear as a country night in winter…  The photo really doesn’t do it justice (daddy trying to take a long exposure without a tripod, while kneeling on the wet grass, in -1celcius).

Saturday morning (after enjoying some time in the clouds, and a nice breakfast by the fireplace)...

...we headed out to Hill End to explore the old gold town.   There we visited a mine, enjoyed some time in the old town centre, and drove out to a lookout to see what we could find.

The girls found some nice quartz to bring back with them.

 Heading out for dinner, we drove through another mining town of Sofala (or Selfie!)

 

Saturday night was an interesting one, with massive storms battering the bus (which we found out afterwards isn’t secured to the hillside, merely resting there).  But we made it through the howling winds and crashing thunder, and awoke to something beautiful…fresh fluffy snow!

 So we spent a few hours enjoying the snow.

Then the snow started to melt, and the roads to clear...so it was time to say goodbye.

The last two shots are for scale...if you look very closely, around the centre of the image... You can see the red bus up on top of the hill!

All in all a great weekend!