5 minutes away

5 minutes away from my house can take you pretty much anywhere on a small 5km x 8 km island.

 

I heard of a photography challenge once that asked people to walk or drive exactly 5 minutes away from their house then when the timer went off, stop and take a photo of what you see.

Here is a Sunday in our lives (not a typical one as there is no such thing, each week is completely different)

 Lets start with bacon and egg wraps for brunch 5 minutes away down the hill at Ball bay.

Even though we can hear the waves crashing from our place, the kids mentioned that we hadn't been there for a while to play.

 Lots of cows at Ball bay today checking us out.



♪Kids to the left of me, cows to the right. Here I am stuck in the middle ♪

We only got a quick play there when we got a phone call to say Brandt was coming back to the Kingston pier. He has worked out at Philip Island for the past 3 days and nights building things for the National Park.

So another 5 minutes away gets us down to Kingston.

 



 

 
Welcome to the new arrivals coming for a holiday, welcome back to any locals on the plane.
What a scenic view they have flying in.

Our friend Mark surfing

There was plenty of fishing activity on the pier today.

A perfect day out on the water.

 one of the prettiest fish I have ever seen.

Darren from Advance takes some of the kids friends out to Philip Island for a few hours.

 My kids spot a shark or two cleaning up the fish waste thrown off the pier. Good recycling.

 My little buddy Zephyr with some of the catch from his uncles boat

 It is such a nice day, we decide to go for a swim at the beach. We forgot to bring swimmers, but its no problem to pop home and get them as we are only 5 minutes away.


This is why they call it stockyard road ☺The stock really do rule the roads, they have right of way.

 

The clearest waters at Emily bay

 Miss 11 looking so grown up now next to her dad.

That's a lot of toes out on the raft



Time for the plane to leave back to Sydney. We hope you had a great time here on Norfolk Island



Dad gets pushed off the raft

A beautiful brother sister moment

 And then the competitive games begin

 Sometimes you do a double take and wonder how they are growing up so quickly.
Both are gorgeous inside (most of the time) and out.



And then the day ends with an awesome view like this... all 5 minutes away

A late afternoon at Ball Bay

It is winter school holidays here but we continue to work at the preschool with a vacation care program. My kids have been amazing helpers (most of the time) and rarely complain that they don't get school holidays off to do whatever they want on the island.
I think they actually prefer school holidays at Minischool than being at home as they can complete plenty of projects as well as play with friends and the younger pre-schoolers in our amazing gardens. Plus it is so close to the shops that they can walk there if they want to.

This afternoon we looked down at Ball Bay as we arrived home from preschool (we live up the cliff and look down onto this amazing bay) and all decided on the spot that we needed to boil the kettle to take a thermos of hot chocolate down there just like we used to do often a few years ago.

10 minutes later we were down at the bay for the last rays of the day.

No.3 child was at a friends house, so it was just me and the oldest 2 plus the dog, we searched for driftwood, the smallest hihi (periwinkle), walked around the bay & up to the waterfall, raced to the waves and back and earned our hot choccy's.

What a great way to end the working (which is really playing) day.