Camping weekend at Borumba Deer Park

Another busy week in the books, with lots of stuff going on each night and not much time to write. But we wrapped up the weekend by camping with the family for some much-needed time to get away.

Camping Weekend

I feel like whenever I set foot in our caravan, my body just instinctively knows it’s time for the circadian rhythm to reset. The sun goes down, and within an hour I’m ready for bed. Someone might need to pass that memo on to our dog; the first night he thought it was party time in the caravan.

We stayed at Borumba Deer Park on the Sunshine Coast.

The camping grounds are located about 10 minutes out of Imbil, not far from the popular town of Kenilworth. If you’ve heard of Kenilworth, you’ll know of their donuts.

The camping grounds are pet-friendly and even include a dog off-lead area. Which Bear absolutely loved, as it meant he could find a spot to poop in peace. Not so much for my husband, who still had to go find the poop and pick it up to toss it away. Yep, you still need to pick up after your animals.

Another thing our dog loves: claiming camping chairs for himself.

At night, he was snuggled up in one, falling asleep. We had to keep waking him up so that he would actually sleep in the van that night instead of a second night of keeping us up.

Kids-wise, the camping grounds are fantastic. There’s a creek to play in, two playgrounds (one of them is massive and includes climbing walls, rope climbs, swings, slides, etc.), mini golf, and loads of animals.

This particular weekend, they had organised a lot for the kids. They had the usual daily animal feed, plus a “gold nugget hunt” (rocks spray-painted in gold for the kids to find), face painting and henna tattoos, and an afternoon movie session.

I thought the animals were all rescues, but it looks like I was making that up. Either way, they’re all pretty chill towards people. Our dog was more afraid of them than they were fussed by him. Even the ducks didn’t seem in a hurry to get out of his way when I took him for a morning walk.

Funny story – on the way back from a 5.30 am morning toilet run, I heard this horrible noise. I wondered if there was someone in town honking a horn of some old truck or something. Later in the day I realised nope, it was just this guy.

I did get to see this beautiful morning sunrise though.

We’re back home now, unpacked, and I’m halfway through the washing. So all the not-fun stuff is done.

I’m looking forward to washing my hair, putting a face mask on (I’m rocking the camping pimple face), and just relaxing this evening!

August Gratitude

I wanted to finish wrapping up the August gratitude.

Oh my god – I just went to write “I know, I know, we’ve passed the first week of September already” only to realise it’s the 13th. What?! How are we nearly in the middle of September already!? What is going on?!

So I guess here’s my extremely late roundup of the last few days of August’s gratitude prompts. I didn’t manage to do them daily, but I really enjoyed the opportunity to appreciate some different elements of my life.

• Compliment someone: For this one, I took the opportunity to acknowledge someone at work. They’re someone who is extremely intelligent with great attention to detail, and typically only deals with problems that can’t be solved. It can beat a person down. So I just thanked them for dealing with the yuk things, for showing up every day, and for still continuing to do their best.
• Daily task I’m grateful I can do: I’m grateful for the clothes folding. I learned the KonMari folding method, and I’m so, so grateful for it. I learned it years ago and never looked back. It’s easy to find the shirt I want to wear, and my drawers feel organised. And oddly, I now enjoy the folding. I read a book on my Kindle at the same time. It’s also to the point that I get cranky if my husband tries to do the folding.
• Something I used to overlook but now deeply value: I think I only realised it once I became a parent, but I deeply value my alone time. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love my husband and child. But if I don’t get some time to myself to recharge and “refill the cup”, so to speak, the difference is notable.
• Someone I thought about with love: my husband. I think sometimes I might come across a bit… distant or cranky. I’m trying to improve, but I’m just so damned tired all the time. So I know he’s rarely on the receiving end of my love and affection. But I am so, so grateful for him, the family that we’ve cultivated, the experiences we get to have, and just who he is as a person. There’s so much to love about him, and while he has his flaws, as we all do, I can love and understand them.
• What can you let go of in September to make room for more gratitude? People’s judgement. I say this having reached mid-September, so it’s really only something I can focus on for the next fortnight. But I have been triggered by little comments from people in the last few days that make me question things that I love and enjoy. So, I’m going to try to let that go, and instead, when they judge, I’m going to appreciate myself for the very thing they’re judging me for.

And that’s me for the gratitude posts! A huge thanks to Elisabeth from The Optimistic Musings of a Pessimist for organising it. She’s on her own little bloggy break at the moment, catching up on some life things. But hopefully, at some point she reads this and knows that, to continue with the gratitude, I’m super grateful for her coming up with this idea and some pretty thought-provoking topics. It was a lot of fun!