Start of School & Chinese New Year

 January 2022 was meant to be the start of a great year... (albeit a wet start)... so we kicekd of the Chinese New Year (Tiger) with a small family feast by the pool.

 

January also represented the start of Keira's high-school journey, joining her sister again on the daily trek to school.

Wagga Wagga | January 2022

 Following on from our successful roadtrip / mini-vacation to Orange, we thought we'd pack up the car again and head out west to Wagga Wagga.  The trip was primarily driven by a visit to our latest investment purchase, but also gave us a chance to visit the town that had been Dad's work for ~3 years.

Wagga was hot, humid and swarming with mozzies...which meant a lot of time indoors, and not a lot of photos (other than of Spud in the car it seems)...but for good measure, here's what we did capture!

First up, the new house...

And then...the stages of Spud in the car...from alert... to asleep.

Spud also got his first real shopping experience...both in a basket, and a trolley!

Orange | January 2022

It's hard to believe (well it would be in any other year...but COVID) that it's been 12 months since our last family holiday (to Coffs Harbour).  So we packed up the car just after New Year and headed out to the lovely town of Orange.

And to make the trip all the more special, we booked a pet friendly airbnb, and took Spud along for the drive!

First real stop upon visiting Orange was a local winery...which happened to be closed (we did manage to book a holiday which included 2 public holidays!)

Although the winery was closed, we did get to run around the gardens a little, and Spud met a very nice dalmation!

Next stop was a visit to the Orange Botanic Gardens... where we spent an hour or so wondering around, enjoying some nature including some ducks.

Posing with some apple orchards...

We then needed something to cool off with before finding the airbnb... what could be better than some nice local gelato from Scoops!... their tagline is 'Click it and Lick it'... a little questionable, but the icecream was delicious.

We then headed to our cosy cottage for the 2 nights... which included a great backyard for Spud.

Spud really liked the house.... 

The next item on the agenda was a visit to another winery, Stockman's Ridge, where we picked Cherries for the first time!

After all that work (and eating of cherries) we headed out to the historic town of Millthorpe as we'd read that there was a nice chocolate shop in town! But alas, the curse of the public holiday got us again...but we did get a chance to pose for some photos on the railway!

Before heading to a small cafe in Lucknow on our way home.

And then suddenly, it was time to head home...but not before a healthy breakfast (pancakes and milkshake for Claire)

A visit to the historic town of Hartley...

And the Lolly Bug in Little Harley (which we visited a few years ago when we went to Bathurst back in 2015).  We've included a photo of the girls at the Bug back then... a little different to now!