Naracoorte & our FINAL day (day 30)

Well, here it is.  Our last day of our super holiday.  This final day is always a bit sad, because we don't get to do a trip like this very often, and unlike most of you reading this, we don't get weekends, public holidays or school holidays off as a family either.  From now, the best we can manage is a day here or there, but usually not a run of days.

Fleur with the kids and me

But today, we packed up from Fleur and Scott's (thankyou very much guys!) and took the kids to the Naracoorte caves before heading home.

Naracoorte caves is richly endowed with fossils of megafauna from a minimum of 50,000 years ago.  Giant kangaroos, koalas, snakes, diprotodons (like giant wombats) all lived and died here.  Because of the limestone caves, a lot of fossils have been conserved and recovered.

A model of a lifesized Diprotodon

A giant flat faced kangaroo that lived around here 50,000 years ago 

Go, go, go baby!

In the interactive area - the fossil centre

On the tour of Alexandra caves

Checking out a stalagmite

Structures called 'straws' (hollow stalagtites) 

The "Wedding Cake"

All too soon, we crossed the border and of course, dragged some of the kids out of the car for a final border photo!

And home!

Admittedly, I took these photos the next morning because we actually pulled into home in the dark.  But what greeted us at the front gate, was our yukka plant in full flower.  I didn't even know that these plants flowered!  I bought this particular yukka with me to the farm 13 years ago (almost to the day) and it was just a single stem with a spike at the top.  Look what it has become.

Mark's mum and dad are leaving to go to Mudgee for a National Rally, so they are packed up and ready to go.  We are sort of tag teaming!!

So, the highlights of the trip (in no particular order):

• Swimming with the Tuna (Port Lincoln)
• Driving on beaches at Lucky Bay and Cape Le Grande (Esperance)
• Adventure World (Perth)
• Wave Rock (Hyden)
• Boat trips (Bunbury and Port Lincoln)
• Spending time as a family
• Visiting places that we never have gone to if we didn't run into issues with accom over Easter (Ravensthorpe and Hopetoun)
• Catching up with family and friends that we haven't seen in years (Perth and Australind)
• Rottnest Island

Kms travelled today: 386

Final kms travelled for our whole holiday: 8,873