Friday, June 14, 2013

A day out in Rockingham

So I've got 2 voucher books, Kidzabuzz and the Entertainment Book. We've been feeling a bit fed up of late that our finances aren't allowing us to see as much of WA as we'd like, so when we can we're playing 'voucher lottery'!! I find something we want to do and then try and build a day round it using our voucher books!

So far it's been great ( see cuddly farm).

This week we went to Rockingham. There was a voucher for $10 to visit a local conservation project, The Rockingham Regional Environmental Centre. We're all suckers for an exhibition and throw in an animal or 2 and we're there.



TBH it was a bit run down & not a huge amount to see, but it had a really cool wee park, which my 3 loved and we'll go back in the summer to see a movie ( they have a fab outdoor cinema area).

It had this interesting sign IN the play park which had Craig and I running around clapping our hands and shouting, just in case!


Whilst it wasn't a terribly plush or 'put together' place, you know what, GO! For $10 and to support the volunteers I thought it was good. Plus no tearoom or gift shop, so no asking for stuff.

From there we went to the seafront in Rockingham and had a picnic. Craig fancied a coffee, so i googled MuzzBuzz and found one less than a mile away (buy one grand latte get one free). The whole of the front has loads of parks. The only downsides were if you looked to the right, the view is awful (grain silos i think), and there were loads of bikies roaring along the front! I'm a bit if a scaredy cat when it comes to biker gangs etc. But overall I felt really safe with the girls and at this point Rockingham seemed really nice.

Our next stop was the park at ferry terminal for Penguin Island. The girl in the shop was dead helpful & we were talking about going to come back in late spring to spend a day over there! There was a gift shop so we had 20mins of 'no you do NOT NEED a kangaroo for $40'!! Up until this point i was thoroughly enjoying our day and feeling very much relaxed and enjoying the chilled "vibe".

Now, 15 some years selling methadone in the west coast of Scotland has made aware of certain "social nuances" and probably top 10 on the list is "you don't put sharps bins in public toilets unless people regularly shoot up there"!! Well, that was it, "shoes on kids", "watch where you're walking", "get back in the car"!! It's a fact of Australian life that within 2 days, your children will become feral and resist at all opportunity the request to wear shoes!! Intravenous needles and barefooted toddlers don't go!! Sorry Penguin Island left a bit of a bad taste!

So as a final treat and to use our vouchers off we trotted to Baskin & Robbins in the centre of Rockingham. The centre is lovely, quite touristy, but having just come from "the needle experience" i was thankful for "touristy". Our eldest about wet herself when i told her she could have any sundae she wanted (she didn't know i had a BOGOF voucher snaffled up my sleeve). BOGOF sundaes were consumed (with 5 spoons) and all in all we had a terrific day out!

Since telling people we went to Rockingham for the day many locals have snickered!! I'm beginning to wonder if its the British equivalent of going to Sellafield. But upon reflection to have done what we did for $10+$4.20+$10=$24.20, i think it was brilliant and im sure if i ask my 3 "do you want to go to the park with the deadly snakes?" they'll say "YES"!!

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