Dunsborough holiday mark 2

At about this time last year we spent a week in Dunsborough with friends and had a thoroughly enjoyable time. We repeated the exercise a fortnight ago, over the long weekend, in a rented house with Granny and Grandad.

The house we stayed in was right on the old Dunsborough foreshore and it was simply amazing. Four bedrooms, two king bedrooms each with ensuite, a bedroom with two single beds for E. (When asked what she did on holiday, E will tell you "we went to sleep. I had TWO beds!")

Here is the house from the outside:

 

If you walk down the front steps this is what you see:

If you cross the footpath that you can see at the edge of the grass above you find a little path:

And at the end of the path is the beach. Quite possibly the most perfect toddler beach in the world. At low tide there was 50 metres or more of ankle depth water, zero waves, rock pools and sandbars.

 

It was so safe we were quite happy to let E explore without having to hover right over her, (although D did decide a certain minmum of clothing might be prudent!) Needless to say, we spent a lot of time there.

Other features of the trip included a lunch at Duckstein Brewery - a table right next to the in-house playground made it very manageable, an ice cream at Simmo's and lots of walks and trips to the playground.

This house would be amazing in summer - we got plenty of use out of the beach and barbeque even though some of the days were decidedly cool, but it would be ever lovelier if it was warm. Anyone want to plan another trip, maybe for early next year?

Here's to holidays

Through either good luck or silly planning, after not having had a proper holiday in about a year, we have wound up with two down-south holidays scheduled in the space of six weeks. The first was with friends in the CHOGM week, to take advantage of the public holiday and the fact that the courts all closed for the week, so it was a good time for D and lawyer friend S to be away. The second is next week, for a friend's wedding.

Round One was declared a success. We stayed at the beautiful Bunker Bay resort just outside Dunsborough. It is a series of villas that are surrounded by bush and designed to blend with the natural environment. It is also close enough to the beach that you walk through the resort, and through a short bush track, and emerge on sand.

It's not the sort of place we'd ever have stayed pre-E, but with two toddlers it was perfect. Buffet breakfast at the hotel restaurant was included four mornings out of the five, and we all made complete pigs of ourselves. E happily demolished a plate of "eggy," "ham" (bacon), fruit and pancakes each morning. Unlike the rest of us, she usually managed lunch each day too!

The main room of our villa.
There were also two bedrooms and two bathrooms.

E had a fantastic time swimming in the hotel pool with her Dadda. She appears to have forgotten the beach since last summer and was quite scared of the waves, but she loved the pool. The weather was cool enough that I was more a fan of the deck chairs and the view, but D was very devoted and went in with her each time she demanded it.

See what I mean about the view?

And the weather - check out those grey clouds!

Although travelling with E and with another toddler had its challenging moments, on the whole it worked out really well. Each grown-up couple managed a lunch out, plus a dinner at the hotel restaurant. We did two group trips to Simmos ice-creamery where E enjoyed smearing her first ice cream in a cone all over her face, a trip to a local animal farm and a 3km walk from Cape Naturaliste lighthouse to a scenic lookout. Amazingly, E consented to stay in her pram for almost the whole thing and Little Friend T did pretty well in an ergo carrier on his Dad's back.

The reward at the end of the walk

E and I very much enjoyed having five days solid with D. E's language continued to increase in leaps and bounds: memorable additions to her vocabulary included an amazed "Mama! Biiiiiig duck!" when she saw the resident emu at Simmo's, and "go in pool! go in pool!" every time we walked past it.

The only good thing about the holiday being over is that the next one is now only a week away!

More photos on the private blog for those who are interested.