Sunday 31 May 2015

King Valley Trip -> Day 1

Sunday morning was spent finishing packing the car and trailer, then trying to tidy up the house a little. We got away by 1.20pm, a bit later than we'd hoped, although still with enough time to get to our campsite and get set up. We stopped briefly in Yea to grab pies and sausage rolls for lunch (we ate them in the car) and had a very pleasant drive up to the King Valley.

We arrived at the vineyard (one of De Bortoli's, in Moyhu) just before 4.30. We'd stayed here once before - when I was pregnant with Millie and we did a trip up through the Alpine country, we stayed our last night in one of the houses on the vineyard - so it felt familiar. We'd done a tour of the property while we were there, and our combined memories of that meant that we found the campsite fairly easily even though we'd never been there before. We weren't expecting to have any facilities, so were pleasantly surprised to find a portable toilet, a big shelter with tables underneath, and several taps with running water. There was also a large rubber slide heading down into the river, and a couple of kayaks on the shore - all very exciting and a bit of a bonus.

We set up the tent while it was still light, and the kids helped in between exploring the area. Tony went into town to get some ice for the esky, and discovered that the pub was doing pizza. We got a fire going, then decided to head to the pub for tea. They were only doing takeaway, which was fine, although it took a very long time to be ready. While we were waiting LiAM put many dollar coins into a skill machine, trying to win a spider robot thing - with no luck in the end although he got very close several times. We also won the raffle - some bottles of red wine from a local winemaker - there were 4 bottles, and Tony gave 2 of them back to use as a 2nd prize, as we have plenty of wine ourselves!

Back to our campsite where we roasted marshmallows by the fire and had some s'mores - didn't quite have the right biscuits and only had dark chocolate so LiAM didn't really like them, it was fun to try though. Millie fell asleep in Tony's lap. Then into the tent where we made sure everyone had lots of blankets and beanies and warm clothes - it was COLD! I read a chapter of Eldest to everyone and we chatted in the dark until everyone went to sleep.