Normally when Duncan and I visit the Hunter Valley it would be for a wine trail, But this time we remained firmly in the Crowne Plaza until we left for Newcastle.!
Its Good Friday (15th April, 2022) now and we head for the "all you can eat" breakfast, which is a great hit with Theo, and Claudia is not far behind him! It is interesting to watch their choices. From my point of view the banana bread is the hit!
The breakfast area is a short walk to the unit, so we are able to let our breakfasts settle (yes we probably ate enough each for 3 breakfasts). Simon and Duncan have gone off to play golf, Jackie goes for a walk and the kids and I head of for the pool area.
First we try the spa area, but it is too full of silly kids ducking and diving. I have a good book to read, so we set ourselves up, and the kids go an explore the water tower. Its a bit like the fountain in Cuba Mall, as buckets fill up with water and then tip out over any unsuspecting kids. This includes one ginormous bucket which leads to much shrieking. But not from Theo and Claudia. They are way to savvy to get caught by the buckets tipping over, and resort to the waterslide.
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| Theo and Claudia enter the bucket track. The big berry structure is the real dumper of water! |
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| Claudia at the top |
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| Theo appears through the water tunnel - not too scary. |
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| "Lets have another go." |
After that it had warmed up enough for us to go into the big pool. I did a couple of laps, with Theo in tow. The deep end was way over our heads, so fortunately Claudia did some widths. Then its back to the unit after playing some games.
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| Claudia and I play Jenja. She is an excellent strategic thinker! |
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| Jackie and Theo play Connect 4 |
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| Claudia does a tricky round-the-pillar domino trail |
Hot Cross Buns and some excellent Coconut muffins that Jackie had made for lunch. ( I got the recipe)
Its dinner out at the restaurant to night so some of us have a bit of a nap.
There are plenty of other activities, Tennis which Jackie, Simon and Theo play, Putt Putt Golf which Duncan takes the grandies down to, and even another game of Jenga for the Queen of Jenga to test the boys with.
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| "I've seen this move done before" Oooh No. |
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| This is how you do it. |
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| Simon and Claudia |
While the other are out at tennis, Claudia and I do folding drawings, you draw a head, and fold it over and swap, then you do the body, and swap.....
Saturday - after the all you can eat breakfast - its time to pack up and head home. Jackie heads off in her car, but we are on a detour to the Hunter Valley Gardens.
But Alas, with it being a driveable distance from Sydney, being a holiday weekend, with it have a dinosaur monsters display we got into a long queue for the car park (It was hardly moving, and might have taken half an hour to park the car), so we turned to plan B and went to the Chocolate factory instead!
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| Not a bad selection! |
Duncan enjoyed his coffee here, the kids were allowed to choose one thing each (Theo - candyfloss, Clauds, chocolate freckles (with hundreds and thousands) and Gran chocolate pretzels) I also bought some boxes of Turkish delight for our hosts in Newcastle and Brisbane.
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A bit of exploring before we set off again
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And so we head back to Newcastle, for the BIG surprise......
