Rydges Bell City, Preston, Victoria, Australia

When we entered the room my kids initial reaction was WOW. The room were clean and well presented with modern fittings a fixtures. We booked 2 family rooms as a family of 9 and the hotel accommodated our request to have them next to one another. Each had a kitchenettee so if we wanted to cook our own meals we could have. The beds were comfortablee and house keeping ensured the room was cleaned and well presented when we returned from being out. The location was perfect as we have a lot of family in the northern suburbs and it was close to the location of the funeral we were attending. The pool area was nice and big, the guy cleaning the pool was also very friendly. The kids loved the smell of the soap that was provided. The only thing that had been neglected was the blinds. When we pulled them down at night you could see dirty finger marks which looked like a toddler had eaten something sticky and used the blinds as a napkin. Also there was a dirty dinner tray in the corridor that probably had been left there a bit too long.

WOULD WE STAY AGAIN? Definitely, we are looking to go to Melbourne again next year and will definitely consider Rydges Bell City for that stay also.

Australian All Schools Championships - Adelaide 2014

 

 

C competed at her first selective National event on the weekend, the Australian All Schools Championships, ran by Athletics Australia. She landed herself a place on the South Australian team due to coming second at the state event Late October. Luckily it was held in Adelaide this year.  

 

 

 

C competed in the under 14 3000m walk. She smashed her previous PB of 17:57, doing it in 17:25. Her time has qualified her to compete in the same event in Sydney in March at the Australian Junior championships.

Another Centre Record

V dwarfs had her sights set on breaking the centre record for the under 11 girls 1100m walk. The record was set a number of years ago during the 1996/97 season with a time of 6.04.9. She raced with her group and finished in a time of 6.10, which coincidentally was not only a PB, but faster than the under 11 boys centre record. Determined to beat it, she then lined up with the boys and less than 10 minutes later dropped 8 seconds from her PB to set a new centre record at 6.02.2. She now has a goal to beat the state record which currently is set at 5.40.7, also set in 1996.   

 

 

Rydges South Park - Adelaide, South Australia

Me and R celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary recently and celebrated with a night at Rydges South Park in Adelaide. I was looking for somewhere that had a spa in the ensuite, pool and breakfast included. An Executive Spa room ticked all our boxes.

 

 

We stayed on the 3rd floor as I had requested a lower floor thanks to my dislike of elevators. I learnt very quickly that I would have to just suck it up and use the elevator after twice finding ourselves locked in the stairwell, once we thankfully found an unlocked door, the other time a staff member came to our rescue. Our room was 319, it had a king bed, TV, DVD player, bar fridge, balcony and as mentioned above a corner spa. The balcony looked out to the city of Adelaide. The pool, spa and gym where on the 6th floor near the restaurant.

 

Breakfast was a buffet which included hot food such as sausage, eggs, bacon, mushroom, tomato and toast. Fruit, yoghurt, breakfast cereals and pastries where also included. To drink, there where a variety of juices as well as the usual hot drinks.

 

We thought it would be a good idea to have a bubble bath, but of course when we turned the spa on, we realised it may not have been such a great idea!

 

South Australian All Schools Championships - 2014

C dwarf came 2nd in the 3000m walk at the All Schools Athletics championships on the weekend and has now landed her a spot on the South Australian team to compete at the Australian All Schools championships early December. 

Stawell, Victoria, Australia

We had to make a short notice trip from Adelaide to Melbourne over the weekend, the total travel time was exactly 48 hours from 12:30pm Friday to 12:30pm Sunday. We decided to break the trip up and stay in Stawell. We have driven through the town many times, but have never actually stopped for longer than to fill up the car with fuel.

We stayed at Coorrabin Motor Inn, which was located on the highway. I had decided on this place as I had read many positive reviews regarding the friendliness of the staff, these reviews were very accurate and we had the same experience.  My review which I posted to Booking.Com is as follows:

"They had family rooms, often hard to come by. The staff were extremely friendly and happy to help. The accommodation was clean, tidy and better than expected for the price paid. The bowl of lollies was a hit with the kids.

The water temperature for the shower in one of the rooms was a bit hard to get just right, but other than that there were absolutely no issues at all. The location for some could be problematic being on a main road with lots of traffic, but we all slept well with no issues."

 

 

 

 

We took the dwarfs to see where the Stawell gift is ran, before having dinner at the Gift Hotel, which was directly across the road. The food was what you would expect for a pub meal, staff were friendly and accommodating. We actually got there just after the kitchen was due to shut. The dwarfs had a choice out of 4 different kids meals, half chose sausages and chips, which was a plate of chips with 2 sausages. The other half chose chicken dinosaurs, which also was a plate of chips with about 6 chicken nuggets shaped as dinosaurs. The dinosaurs were a big hit. Me and R went for a full sized pasta dish each, I had the salmon and he had the carbonara and they were massive. I only managed to get through half of it, and that was with some help from the dwarfs.   

 

 

 

Saturday morning we drove to Melbourne at 6am and arrived by 9am. We spent some time with family before heading back to Stawell at 6pm, arriving at around 9:30pm. It was one very busy day, but we surprised ourselves with just how much we managed to fit in.

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday Mail City to Bay - 21st of September 2014

V had a goal to run this years 12km Sunday Mail City-Bay Fun Run in under 55 minutes, which would be breaking her PB by almost 5 minutes. I told her if she ran it under 55 minutes she could have $20 as a reward for beating her goal. Unfortunately for V, she would have been $20 richer if she had of just ran 0.01 of a second faster! She ran it in exactly 55.00 minutes. Fortunately for her, I'm feeling generous.

For the 4th year in a row, she won her age category. If that wasn't enough, she also beat the 10 & 11 year old boys and the 11-15 year old girls. She ran a few seconds slower than the 16 year old girl.

Next year they are running the race twice, in April the first Bay-City will run.