Tuesday, May 3, 2011

A Weekend in the City

After spending the Easter/ANZAC weekend on work standby I wanted to take the family away. Our original plan was to take the caravan up to the Lane Cove Caravan Park, but the prediction of wet weather dampened our idea of camping in the caravan. Still wanting the get away we chose to stay at the Formule 1 motel at Homebush Bay.

We headed up to Sydney early on the Saturday morning where we headed straight over to the CITO event in the Lane Cove National Park. Here we met up with a few familiar faces and assisted in the clean up around the river. The onset of rain was our signal to leave and from here we headed over to our motel.

The idea of staying in a motel always has our kids excited and today was no exception. Upon checking in we were pleased to see our room had good views of the Olympic area and the kids quickly took dibs on which bed was their’s.

For the rest of the afternoon we took the kids around to the Aquatic Centre where we all had fun playing and swimming in the activities on offer. We only left when we did cause we’d all turned into wrinkle prunes. However what it did do was wear out the kids sufficiently enough that they were almost ready for bed. Which, after showers and an easy dinner that’s what they did. This allowed Leonie and I to have a relaxing night together.

Sunday and it was family fun day on the public transport, which we took full advantage of. We boarded a Rivercat at Ryldemere for the one-stop trip into the city. The kids were so excited with our water transport and were constantly spying new things out the window, meanwhile Leonie and I were awe of the money which adjoins the foreshore and harbour. We were soon heading under the harbour bridge for the first time and soon after were docking at Circular Quay.
After a short stop we were on our way around to Pyrmont Point where we had to time to have a quick look around and do a spot of cache maintenance. Back on a ferry its back to Circular Quay where after a change of ferry we were on our way to Cockatoo Island. This was to be our first ever visit to this inner city island and it was very rewarding.

Once on the island the kids got right into the kids tour while I completed one of the few remaining virtual caches still available. The weather was perfect for a day out in the sun and our time on the island was absolutely wonderful. We checked out the camping for a possible future adventure and took a number of great family pics with the harbour as our backdrop.

Regrettably it was soon time to leave and after another Rivercat ride we were soon at Rydalmere. From here it was an hour trip home in the car and the end of a great weekend.

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