NSW Trip - Day 18

I was up early this morning to do my monthly shift on the Breastfeeding Helpline – I had thought about swapping but that’s always a bit tricky and being an early morning shift (6-10am) it was easy enough to fit it in to our holiday, especially on a morning when we weren’t leaving to go to the next place. I took 8 calls in between hanging out with the kids and Tony, and they watched tv and used their activity books and played with Millie’s birthday toys.

The rest of the morning was spent in the caravan park, catching up on a bit of housework/laundry, and playing. The kids rode their scooters and played in the playground.

After lunch we got ready and went to Homebush Aquatic Centre. This was intended to be Millie’s birthday activity, but the Centre wasn’t open on the long weekend Monday, so we postponed until Tuesday. I had taken the kids here 2 ½ years ago and everyone was excited about going back and playing at Splashers and on the slide.

We arrived just before the water play area was turned on, so started off in the small pool and then went into the rapids pool for a couple of rounds. Caitlin was the first person down the big slide when it opened, then LiAM then me – it was a bit scary but lots of fun. It was especially exciting for LiAM because he was only just over the height limit of 120cm so it was the first time he’d been able to go on this slide. For the next couple of hours we all moved between the little pool with fountains, the adventure water playground, the big slide, the rapids pool, the spa and the lap pool. The rapids pool was a lot of fun – a channel of water that is running fast enough to propel you around without having to swim – and it was also really exhausting. LiAM really loved (as always) the massive bucket of water that tips onto the roof of the play area and splashes over in a huge wave. Tony thinks it would hold about 500L. Everytime the bell rang to warn it was going to tip, LiAM tried to get there in time to be dumped on. Sometimes he sat there waiting for it in between times so he didn’t miss it. Millie used the warning bell to help make sure she was far away in the other direction before it tipped. I was starting to wonder how long I wanted to stay and what inticements I could offer the kids when it was time to get out, when all of a sudden the water was turned off, and the lifeguards asked everyone to get out of the pool. They said it was a water quality issue (probably translation – a bit of poo leaked out from someone’s nappy into the water) – I saw them cleaning it up and it looked like a very tiny amount – but it meant that we were out of the water so it was time to get dry and dressed. Afterwards we went upstairs for hot chips, and on the way out we stopped briefly to watch the divers training on the big diving boards and high platforms – quite impressive.

On the way home we stopped and picked up some groceries for dinner and Tony cooked a lovely butter chicken type meal. We watched some TV and had another very quiet evening.