A-Team Down Under: Three Cool Cats (Camping in Ballarat)

Actually, we were four freezing cats, or perhaps bunnies, since it was Easter weekend. And nothing says Easter like camping with three Jewish families, right? Jesus was Jewish after all! So, on a lovely Good Friday we packed up our car and headed to Ballarat. We sure do miss our minivan, but Andy managed to put a lot of stuff on the roof rack and it worked out just fine. And don't go thinking that we strapped the kids to the roof like Mitt Romney did with his dog. Although the thought did cross our minds when the kids climbed up and suggested it would be fun to ride up top with the luggage:

Because it was also Passover, our friends were celebrating at home and planned to join us on Saturday. So we had the camp site to ourselves, and had plenty of time to set up our tent, including the cool hanging lantern LED lights that all the Aussies loved.

The campervan/holiday park was nice, with tons of fun things for the kids to do, such as bike rentals, a jumping pillow (i.e., a bounce house without the sides), and a great playground.

In fact, we let them wander and explore completely unsupervised, and they reveled in their freedom. Just like when we were kids ("Honey, have you seen either of the girls in the last four hours?" "Nah, I'm sure they're fine. They'll be back when they get hungry.")

We enjoyed the gorgeous, sunny, autumn day while we could because the next few days would turn out to be cold and rainy (i.e. Alexi's worst camping nightmare - cold and wet). We found a sheltered BBQ to cook our tri-tip, joining two nice families from Geelong who shared some corn-on-the-cob with us.

On Saturday, we headed north to The Tangled Maze, another cool hedge maze:

To add a bit of interest to the maze (beyond the obvious potential for getting stranded for several hours), we were given a quiz with clues and answers hidden through the maze. We divided into teams and started off.

With the maze complete, and a reward of gummy worms for answering all the quiz questions, we set out to play a bit of mini-golf. Lay down some Astro-turf, divide it into sections with bricks, make a few holes, and you've got a mini-golf course, with some nice views of the Australian outback.

On Sunday morning, back at the campground, the Easter bunny made it to Ballarat. He'd originally hidden the girls' Easter baskets in a tree near our tent, but a number of other kids woke up first and nearly made off the baskets, so Andy had to rescue the baskets from the tree and re-hide them.

In Australia, Easter candy comes in two varieties: chocolate eggs and chocolate bunnies (neither of which is that tasty). No jellybeans, no Reeses/M&Ms/Twix/KitKats in pastel wrappers, simply eggs and bunnies. Some people do dye hard-boiled eggs, which is a bit more challenging because they are brown eggs here. And don't you love Aliya's funny Easter Bunny hat?

Andy took charge of Easter Brunch with pancakes on our shiny new stove. Having to cook for ourselves gave us even more appreciation for the Ransoms, who handled breakfasts and dinners for all of us on our twice-a-year camping trips to Leo Carrillo.

It was nice that the kids are old enough to start getting involved. We can't wait for the day when the kids tackle an entire meal, and the adults can just kick back and be waited on. Yeah, I can dream...

After breakfast, we sent the kids out to play again, until it was time for Lord of the Flies. I mean, until the campground-sponsored Easter egg hunt in the playground. With bags and containers in hand, the kids were ready to rumble!

And rumble they did. A massive sprint, very similar to the Torelli Easter Egg Hunt in Tanager Park (for those of you from Orange County). The parents were all standing along the fence around the playground trying to be helpful by yelling at their kids and directing them to the eggs which were just laying around, and which the kids could clearly see.

Aliya and her friend Amy scored big.

After the kids had a go (a turn) the adults got their chance. From what I could tell, the parents were much more competitive than the kids! (Andy here - yep that's me in the middle of the scrum getting ready to go. The parents made a show of being polite, but while waiting to get started, each was sneakily edging closer and closer to the gate to be the first in. And we all had different strategies for getting the most eggs. Mine was to get past the traffic jam at the gate, run right past the easy pickings in front of the gate, and get to the far end of the playground before anyone else.)

Andy's other plan was to get all the eggs no one else could reach!

Our group of happy campers and Easter Egg brawlers:

Dividing up the loot. While bright and colorful, the candy turned out to be so awful, even the kids didn't want to eat it. They came home with way too many eggs, which Andy took into work. But since the chocolate was of a lesser quality, it took several more weeks for Andy's coworkers to get around to eating it all.

After lunch on Easter Sunday, we headed back to the Ballarat Wildlife Park.

We'd been there before, but you can never have too many chances to feed and hug kangaroos, right?

As with most petting zoos, the animals were not shy.

What you lookin' at?

On Easter Monday, our last day in Ballarat, we went to Sovereign Hill, another place we'd visited on our last trip to Ballarat. We loved it last time, so we did a lot of our favorite/favourite activities, like candle-making...

...practicing our penmanship at the one-room school house...

...and pretending to be the teacher.

Campfires are always our favorite part of camping, so it was a bit of a disappointment that they weren't allowed due to the fire hazard and huge fires in recent years. Still, we made the best of it and gathered in a big circle around a bright gas lantern. It didn't provide any warmth, just light, but the kids provided the entertainment. We played a bunch of games, including telephone (called "Chinese Whispers" here), and told jokes, and narrated a joint story (with each person adding a line.) After the kids were in bed, the dads played poker, until the game was cut short by a rainstorm.