Going bush for Father's Day

In amongst all the crazy, we kinda almost nearly forgot about Father's Day.  Well we knew that it was Father's Day but we just didn't have time to plan anything special for the day.  When we found out that Ellen and Sarah were going for a hike at Werribee Gorge, we decided to join them after soccer, after all, the sun was shining and it is spring!

OK, all we really wanted to do was to get out and have some fun and we figured that we could show dad and the others the really cool beach that you get too by rock climbing above the river!

Of course we knew that there were going to be other great places to explore too, so first we set off up the hill.  It was steep and rocky but lots of fun.  There were some great lookouts to stop at for a rest.

Eventually we made it to the beach and stopped to have a picnic lunch.  We could have stayed there all day long but we were kind of excited o show everyone just how much fun it is climbing around the rocks high above the river.  

The grown ups were much more afraid than we were - we were able to climb the entire way without even needing the help of the guide rope!

Oh and in amongst all of the adventuring, we forgot to actually stop and get the obligatory Father's Day photo!  I guess this will have to do, to prove that we did actually have fun hanging out with Dad today. 

Thanks for being a great Dad and having fun adventures with us.  I hope we get to go on more adventures again soon.

Love the best kids in the world,

AJ and Milla xo

Gone Bush

We had a curriculum day today so instead of heading to school, we headed bush. Out to Werribee Gorge State Park to be exact.

Look around... This place is awesome!

We went wandering along the river track for a few kilometers, making heaps of detours along the way to look at interesting things, to imagine what lived in the caves or to throw rocks across the river.

For one section if the track we had to scrabble along some rocks at the bottom of a rocky cliff. We had to hold on to the cable that was attached to the rocks to make sure we didn't slip and fall into the river.

The best (and the trickiest!) part of the walk

It really wasn't that tricky but nan would have freaked out just watching us!

Just past the scrabbly rock area we found a nice little beach area to rest.

A beautiful place to rest, if you have time for rest!

Well a nice area for mum to rest for a few seconds before we found boulders we could use as stepping stones to get us to the other side of the river! Mum decided to come and see what we were up to. I don't think she was worried about what we were doing, but she did have her camera out just in case one of us fell in!

Jumping from one side of the gorge to the other

Luckily we crossed over the river and back (a few times) and didn't even get wet feet.

We could have spent all day exploring the gorge, it was amazing but we had to head back to the city - we had a dentist appointment to go to. Really, who schedules a dentist appointment on a day off school? I guess we will just have to come back and explore some more of the gorge another day.

Love Princess George

PS - I think we walked about 3kms each direction, plus another k of wandering (and trying to round up some sheep), 7kms - not a bad effort for a day off!

International Earth Cache Day

Did you know that today is International EarthCache Day?  Well I didn't know it was until this morning.  Here I was snuggled on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, munching on toast watching some trashy Sunday morning TV when mum declares that we NEEDED to go caching to celebrate.  Dad was still in bed, Milla was on the computer and I was really in no hurry to move so mum tweeted dad (yep, that's what you do when you are too lazy to go upstairs!) and convinced dad it was time to go on another adventure to find an Earth Cache or two!

"What is an Earth Cache?" I hear you say.  Well that is exactly what I said to mum when she was nagging convincing me to get off the couch and get dressed.  Google to the rescue and we found out that... an EarthCache is similar to a Virtual Cache in the way that there is no traditional cache container or a log book, but because of their purpose they differ greatly.

The purpose of an EarthCache is to share information about a particular geological feature of our planet Earth, and the object is to learn something about it. When you visit an EarthCache, you learn something interesting about the geology of the area. Usually the information is freely given but you have to do a bit of investigative work to answer proposed questions in order to claim the cache.

EarthCaches are created by Geocachers who have knowledge of geoscience and like to share it with the world. (from Geocaching Online)

It sounded pretty cool and I was almost convinced.  I have to say that I really do like to go caching but after such a crazy busy day yesterday, I was really tired and looking forward to a quiet day.  Well that was thrown out the window, a snack bag was packed, we were dressed and before we knew it we were out the door and on our way.  

Apparently there are plenty of Earth Caches around but we just haven't been looking for them.  There are even some close enough to home that we could have ridden our bikes there but we decided to go on a real adventure to Organ Pipes National Park.  There were three Earth Caches out there for us to find.

The first was the Rosette Stone.  It is hard to see in this picture but the columns of rock all start in the middle and then move outwards, kind of like the spokes on a bike wheel.  It is pretty easy to imagine that the huge rock formation is a giant flower!

The second was the actual Organ Pipes themselves.  Now I have never seen real organ pipes but I have seen pictures of them in movies and things, huge big pipes that stick out of the organ.  Well this rock formation on the other side of the creek was just like that.  It looked like huge pipes sticking out of the ground.  Each pipe was a hexagonal shape that happened when the lava began to cool and shrink.

The last Earth Cache was further down the path.  It was the sedimentary rock that has eroded away to be kind of bumpy.  It looked like a fun place to explore and climb but it was on the other side of the creek too so I couldn't get to it.


Can you believe that all of these crazy cool rock formations were caused by volcanoes erupting near here about a million years ago.  How awesome is that!  There was so much to learn about the geology of the area as we explored the park looking for the caches.  We really will have to remember to email the answers to the questions to the cache owner so that we can log them as finds.  Sure we could have done it from Organ Pipes but there was so much more to do.

Naturally there were puddles that just had to be jumped over, or should I say jumped in!

There were rock formations that looked like we could pull them apart.  We tried but it didn't work!

Best of all there were great places to just relax and enjoy being out in the sunshine.

So there you have it, an unexpected adventure and our first 3 Earth Caches found.  Not a bad way to spend a sunny Sunday morning.
Love AJ Pickle

Sundays in my City #15 - PNG (again!)

It has been a very long week that again hasn't involved any photos of worth.  I spent the majority of the week sick in bed and only ventured out today.  Sure I took heaps of photos at soccer but they aren't that interesting and I didn't even take a camera to the ice hockey, wanting to watch the game rather than photograph it.  So again I am stuck with the dilemma - What to share for Sunday in my City?

I know, how about some more photos from Papua New Guinea!  A random collection of photos that show the beauty of the country and the really diverse landscapes.

Just keep walking...

Shopping anyone?

Sun flare over Brigade Hill

The long path home

Most of the group on top of Imita Ridge

The end of the track is in sight - Owers Corner

I promise I will get out of the house and get some photos worth posting this week, or at least be inventive enough to dig through the archives and find something new to post, in the meantime, join in the fun of  Sundays in my City.

Sundays in my City #10 - Trek Training

This time in 2 weeks mum will be in Isurava, a village along the Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea.  It will be the first day of an 8 day trek.  With the adventure so close, this weekend was mum's last opportunity to do some 'real' training with the rest of the group.  What that means it that we didn't get a chance to really see her all weekend!

Yesterday she walked almost 20km up, down and around Mt Macedon, followed by a shorter training session today of only 8km or so at the You Yangs.  Now we have been to both of these places and they really are beautiful but as mum explained, when you are trudging along with a backpack of stuff that weighs 15kg or more, it is really easy to just carefully put one foot ahead of the other instead of taking the time to look around and enjoy the beauty of the walk.  So that is what mum said, what we really think she meant to say is that she was too tired and exhausted to take many pictures!


Saturday at Mt Macedon

Sunlight and Smoke

Sunday at the You Yangs

On Top of the World

Next weekend, we might get to do something together and take photos, who knows?
Love AJ and Milla

PS - We figured that these photos would only be colourful if we were there exploring too!

If you want to join in the fun of Sundays in my City too, click on over to Unknown Mami.

Sunday in my City #3 - Climbing Mountains

We are joining in with Unknown Mami and Sunday in our City again and this time we are actually showing you what we did today.

Milla had soccer and it was an away game, far far away, out in the country.

Milla is #23

The best part of going all the way to the country for soccer is that we had a chance to catch up with grandma for lunch and then we went hiking.  Mum goes hiking out here all the time and today was the first chance that we had to climb Mt Macedon with her and some of her trekking friends.  It was a great walk, about 7km all up, we hope we can go hiking together again soon.

Family adventures are fun :-)

Now I know we complained that we had to go all the way out to the country for our adventures, but really it was only an hours drive away from where we live and we had great fun.  It is great exploring the countryside but we always love coming back home to Melbourne!

Magical Melbourne from CityLink

If you want to join in the fun of Sundays in my City too, click on over to Unknown Mami.