Day 3 - Portland

We spent the whole day exploring Portland - after a pretty good night. Even Gemma slept through to 4:30ish before stirring at all. Ethan must have been worn out, he slept 12 hours! Zac was up earlier than the other two and read books in our bed for awhile. He really got into his Christmas book which he says was about Mary and Joe Fish and baby Jesus!!! We began our day with breakfast outside and Jeanette did a couple of loads of washing... and we've only been gone 2 days!!!

Our first visit was to the Tram and Model Railway museum where we rode for an hour on one of the Portland Cable Trams - restored tram car pulled along by a replica trolley which is now powered by diesel not cable pulled. This was good as it was a beautiful day, blue sky, slight sea breeze keeping it at a great temperature. The ride took us along the waterfront and back again.

Next we visited the Tourist Info office and Maritime Display Centre. This was fun as we got to sit inside the belly of a large whale that washed up nearby in 1987. All that is left is the skeleton of course, but it still smells a bit off-ish! Also in this discovery centre there was a challenge to find various clues hidden in plastic bottles to solve a riddle. Zac and Ethan loved running around looking for these and we found them to get the message.

Lunch was back in the caravan followed by naps for all 3 kids. After dinner we walked around town, bought some ice-cream which we ate overlooking the port sitting on a terrific concrete couch that has been covered in mosaic tiles... pretty comfortable for a concrete couch! Very colourful too. We spent the rest of the evening in the playground down on the waterfront which was a lot of fun. Jeanette went down the big spirally slide and Darrin had fun on a spinning thing... so all 5 of us had fun!

It was nearly 9:30 by the time we got the kids bathed and to bed... we're all right into holiday mode now!