Granite Island, Victor Harbor, South Australia

For anyone who visits Adelaide, or is considering visiting Adelaide, Granite Island in Victor Harbor is one place you should put on your 'to do' list. It's simply beautiful, the views are stunning and the township of Victor Harbor in general is set up for tourists to visit. There are parks galore, lots of places to have a picnic or BBQ and all the shops and amenities you could need. There are museums, steam trains rides, Greenhills adventure park, a wild life sanctuary and much much more.

Getting to Granite island is easy, either you can walk across the bridge or you can take on of the horse drawn trams for a small fee. Once there, you can take one of than many walking tracks around the island, and when you're finished stop for lunch or tea at the restaurant, a snack at the kiosk or shop for souvenirs.

When the Dwarfs cousins came to visit from interstate for Easter this year, this was the first place we took them to visit.

 

 

The Sunday Mail - City to Bay Fun Run

The biggest event on V Dwarfs calendar for the year is the annual City to Bay fun run. She loves her little athletics and loves her race walking, but they are that little too short for her. The 12km run gives her the chance to spread her wings that little bit further.

This was the first year she was to run it on her own, in previous years R had run along side of her. I was a little nervous and after waiting in the massive line for sometime, realised I wouldn't make my 6km race unless I did something I usually would never dream of doing, and jump the queue. She was small enough to duck and weave her way to the start line and at 8:45am her wave started and I watched her run off.

I quickly drove down to the 6km start and was the last runner to leave, in fact no one else but the walkers were left to go. By the 8km mark V had caught up to me and speed right past. She finished a good 10 minutes before me at 9:43am.

Unfortunately there was glitch with the timers and most times were lost and those that were recovered may not be 100% accurate. We estimated by the time V left and arrived the longest she could have done it in was 58 minutes. She was given an official time of 59.49, which means she gets to be in the Sub 60 group next year and that Purple race bib she was aiming for. She is also the first 9 year old girl in a decade to run a sub 60 12km.

 

http://www.city-bay.org.au/

Adelaide Crows vs North Melbourne, Aami Stadium, South Australia

Not exactly far to travel, but definitely worth mentioning. C Dwarf won a competition ran by Foodland to be one of 21 'Rookies for the day' yesterday at the Crows game. Thursday she picked up her full team uniform from Crowmania and was allocated 3 tickets for the game. I was glad to be able to go to Aami stadium for the first and last time. The AFL is quitting Aami Stadium as of the end of the year.

C met the other Rookies at the player and officials room, before being matched with a Crows player (we think it may have been Andrew Otten) to run out onto the field with and through the banner. The crows lead for the majority of the game, but were overtaken by the Kangaroos in the 3rd quarter. Thankfully the Crows were able to get back up again to win the game, which made an awesome day that little bit even better.

Punchbowl, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

R was a last minute inclusion on a fight card in Sydney this past weekend, so we took the opportunity to have a Dwarf free night. We were up early to get ready, dropped the Dwarfs off at grandma's and at school, then headed to Adelaide Airport. We had attempted to book airport parking where we usually park the car when we go away, unfortunately it was all booked out. We decided to try our luck in the long term parking at the airport, however after driving around for 10 minutes looking for the long term parking, we waited in a line of cars to discover it was full and we had to go to the short term parking. We boarded our Virgin Australia flight and despite being on separate bookings and checking in at separate times, we were coincidentally allocated seats next to each other. How is that for luck! I was impressed to see they had an app that we could download onto our Galaxy and get inflight entertainment. I was more than happy to have it on the map that shows you how far the plane has travel with the height and speed info. I know, I know, boring right? Truth is I wanted to be a pilot in high school and that stuff fascinates me. We landed in Sydney and headed towards where our driver was waiting for us. I had asked R if we should hire a car and he had told me there would be someone to pick us up. What we didn't know was that it would be a 12 seater limo!

Unfortunately my camera was packed in the bag in the boot, so I only had my dodgy phone camera. We arrived where we were staying, The Mill Hotel in Milperra. Was basic clean accommodation, the rooms had bedding, a bar fridge, tea and coffee making facilities, a decent sized ensuite. Nothing special, yet nothing wrong with it either. The service from the staff was great. There had been a mix up with the room, so while they sorted it out, we went to the bistro for a hot drink and cake on the house.

We had lunch, both ordered a curry and rice dish which was what you would expect from a pub meal. We then travelled to the Croatian club in Punchbowl for the boxing. Was an excellent night of sport, 2 state title bouts and an Australia title as well was part of the card. R lost his bout on points, but put on a good show and had plenty of offers to be on other upcoming cards before the night was out.

We got back to the motel late, we think about 1230pm, R hadn't eaten since lunch and was keen for some dinner. I'm not sure how, but we managed to find ourselves in the nightclub attached to the motel and after being questioned several times how we 'snuck in', we were promptly were shown the door by 2 security guards. We had tried to explain we were simply looking for something to eat from the Bistro, but they continued to follow us. We saw two police cars and assumed from this that is why we had received such an over the top response, I guess they thought we were sneaking in to cause trouble, especially with R's post boxing face lol. Thankfully a 3rd security guard knew who R was and organised pizza to be brought to our room. We had to leave early in the morning for our flight back to Adelaide, we were picked up by the promoter and dropped off at Sydney airport. Had breakfast in the food court, before I spent some time watching the planes take off and land.

We boarded our Jetstar plane back to Adelaide, we were running a little late due to fog and possibly an incident at Melbourne airport where 2 planes collided. I had wondered why there appeared to be several planes sitting on the tarmac, I assume they were Melbourne bound planes who has been delayed while that incident was dealt with. I was stressing a little as I had to be at work by 3pm, made it with all of 3 minutes to spare!

P321 - Pacific Pearl from Auckland to Sydney, Day 5

We all woke up early to watch the ship come into the harbour, the Dwarfs were more interested in breakfast as they couldn't see much being still dark, but I headed up to deck 14 to take some photo's. The ship was mostly full of New Zealanders, some of who remarked that it looked just like they were in Auckland. I had said to my sister that Auckland reminded me of Sydney by looks and Adelaide by quietness, so it was interesting to hear I was not alone in those thoughts. When it came to the Sydney Harbour Bridge, it did not look like the ship would fit under and a few people were a bit worried. A big cheer went up when it did fit under, although it was not by far at all, I'd think less than a metre. We finished breakfast, cleaned our room and prepared to leave the Pacific Pearl. It was then we discovered E had lost his cruise card and lanyard. Thankfully we were able to get a replacement rather quickly. We disembarked and caught a Taxi to Central Station, only to get a phone call to say one of our suitcases never made it into the Taxi and was still at White Bay, where we docked. We walked to World Square and Roy caught a Taxi there and back to get our lost suitcase. We had wanted to go for a ride on the monorail, however it had broken down. We walked to Westfield, looked around and then caught a train from St James Station back to Central Station. At times the weather was ok, but at other times it absolutely poured with rain. We again went back to World Square hoping to go on the monorail, but as it stops running on Sunday, it was completely sold out. We then decided to take the Dwarfs to see a movie, and went to Event Cinemas on George St to watch Monsters University. When we got out it was absolutely bucketing down with rain and we had to make a dash for the station to get to the train on time. We all ended up saturated, with all our clothes already packed away. Thankfully the train was heated well and we managed to all dry our clothes. We left on the Country Link train headed for Melbourne and said good bye to Roy who caught a train to the airport and then Taxi to his hotel.

P321 - Pacific Pearl from Auckland to Sydney, Day 4

Much calmer seas today, I think they were able to finally put the stabilisers away. We started the day at the Plantation restaurant, but also went out on deck to enjoy a breakfast burger from the grill. We again went to Bingo, twice, and didn't win a thing again. We also enjoyed a comedy game show called Liars where 4 of the staff had to give us a definition of a word, 3 were lying and 1 was telling the truth. Some of the words were 'Crap Mats', 'Titubate' and 'Nelipot'. We learnt they actually were a mountain in Switzerland, to stumble on your speech and someone who doesn't wear shoes, but some of the other explanations were hilarious. In the evening we all met in the Plantation restaurant for tea and were treated to the Pacific Cirque team performing Transformations. 5 different performers performed various acrobatic routines, followed by a laser show. We then tried to get an early night to be awake to come into Sydney Harbour at 5am in the morning.

P321 - Pacific Pearl from Auckland to Sydney, Day 3

I woke this morning with a familiar feeling, the same as what I'd felt the day before. We had been warned by the captain that the swells where going to bigger, around 7 metres. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but the day before it was 3-5 metre swells so it didn't sound too good. As we had made up lost time, the stabilisers were activated and the speed reduced which made the ride a lot more comfortable. I gave the Dwarfs some Maxolon before they got out of bed and took some travel calm. Thankfully this was enough to keep any of us from being sick and apart from not being able to walk in a straight line, we were able to enjoy the day. The Dwarfs went to TC and Skippers birthday party and got to be up on stage as astronauts. Me and Roy tried our hand at Bingo and in 2 of the games managed to get down to one number and we took the Dwarfs down to the shops to buy some souvenirs with their pocket money. In the evening we got all dressed up to go to the Waterfront restaurant for dinner. We got a photo taken of all 11 of us which looked pretty good considering how hard it is to get 7 children to all look at a camera, and it was Hawaiian night so we all got a photo with the Hawaiian 'girls'. I had found on our previous cruise that we got over the food offered rather quickly, most likely due to the fact that we tried it all early on. This time we only had 1 plate for main and 1 for dessert and tried different things each night. This worked and we managed to enjoy something different each meal, I however did not expect R and a few of the Dwarfs to try snails! R eat all of his, C and X were the only others game enough to try them and didn't like the texture. We also enjoyed something we'd never tried before, Mocktails and I discovered my love for Macaroons. I think I must of ate about 8 of them over the 5 days. X discovered a good way to get down stairs faster, use the middle as a slide.

P321 - Pacific Pearl from Auckland to Sydney, Day 2

While packing for this trip, the last thing I packed was the medication. It was so far back on my priority list since last time not one of us needed anything. Well, lucky I did remember cause this time we needed it! I was warned by a work colleague I was crossing one of the roughest seas in the world, the combination of this, needing to make up time due to being late and apparently being located in the worst place at the front of the boat was not a good one. I woke up with a splitting head ache and nausea, as did 4 of the Dwarfs. I took them all out onto deck 12, gave them Maxolon made them take their jumpers off to cool down and laid them on the deck chairs. While it gave them some relief pretty quickly, on and off through out the day they either felt or were sick. Unfortunately we were not alone, quite a number of other passengers and even staff were quite sick as well. Our whole corridor was full of seasick passengers, I felt rather sorry for our cabin steward. In contrast, visiting C down on deck 8, there was absolutely no movement in her cabin, which was likely why her, my mum or sister were not the slightest unwell. So anyone reading this who is new to cruising and looking at going on the Pacific Pearl, room 8136a is a little bit smaller, but as my sister said, what's better a smaller room where you don't get sick or a larger one where you're sick all day? We had breakfast in the plantation restaurant once our stomachs all settled, and the waterfront restaurant for lunch. We slept a lot and really didn't get to go to too many activities. A put himself to bed at about 2pm and didn't move, he was by far the sickest one of us all. It was formal night, me, R, X and C went to the waterfront for tea and C had a photo taken. We headed down to the gym so R could do his daily work out and ensure he didn't end up putting on any weight eating all the yummy cruise food. We all attempted to go and watch the country singer, however we only lasted about 30 minutes before having to leave and put the Dwarfs to bed, hoping we'd have all found our sea legs by the morning.

P321 - Pacific Pearl from Auckland to Sydney, Day 1

We left Melbourne Airport at 6:35pm on Air New Zealand flight NZ126 bound for Auckland. Our flight to Auckland was much nicer than our one to Melbourne, we were all rather impressed with Air New Zealand, each seat had an entertainment unit where you could buy movies to watch or watch TV episodes or play games for free. The seats where comfortable with enough room to be able to relax. The staff where friendly and helpful and the only issue we had with the flight was X waking up suddenly during landing and crying due to I assume sore ears. A couple of the older Dwarfs had the same issue as well despite madly chewing on chewing gum, but as soon as the plane landed at midnight New Zealand time they felt relief. X however was still rather upset about being woken up and cried while trying to exit customs, when we were lucky enough to be taken out a separate exit rather than continue to stand in line. We met my sister, got our hire car and went back to her house to get a few hours sleep. We woke up around 9am and went to Pack and Save to get some last minutes supplies, where I was very impressed with the size of their shopping trolleys! Anyone with a large family will appreciate why this would be exciting, I was having visions of not having to try and push 1 very overflowing trolley or needing more than 1. After this we drove into the city of Auckland and walked down Queens street, looked in a few souvenir shops and the Dwarfs climbed some rather impressive looking trees and collected some large autumn leaves. They were a little disappointed they could not take any home with them. At 1pm we boarded the Pacific Pearl for the 2nd time and settled into deck 10, rooms 10129 & 10125. We were suppose to be on deck 5, however were upgraded to deck 10 shortly after booking. C went off with her Nanna and Aunty to deck 8, room 8136a. All were inside cabins which we found had advantages and disadvantages. They stayed dark and so made sleeping any time of the day easy, but where a little stuffy. We had lunch in the plantation restaurant, went for a walk around the ship and then went out onto deck 12 for the Sail Away party. Unfortunately although it was a lot of fun out by the pool dancing, and R and V managed to win 2 competitions and a free mocktail, it wasn't while we were sailing away. They announced that there was no form of communication while on board due to technical difficulties, so there was no way to contact anyone via phone or internet and all ATMs would not be working. Passengers were given the opportunity to disembark if this was going to be a problem for them, some did and sorting through the luggage took time. At about 8pm we were finally able to leave. We watched the boat leave the and then went and watched a circus show on deck 5. After that we all went to sleep for the night.