Eurobodalla Botanical Gardens

Between Bateman’s Bay and Mogo is the Eurobodalla Botanical Gardens.





The small garden cafe serves light lunches, cakes and slices. We had a yummy hamburger here.



We loved these gardens. Very rustic, natural, full of Australian Natives and many areas of the gardens have barely been touched by man at all.



They’ve included a short children’s walk with a mini booklet to complete for anyone that wishes to do so.

Animal and bird figurines are dotted throughout the walk, however most of these have been damaged. I can never quite understand why people seem to delight in damaging things that are there for the pleasure of everyone.



Interactive question and answer signs are positioned with each animal along the walk.



It took them a couple of ‘walk bys’ to spot the kookaburra’s nested in the trees.



I had no idea what they were discussing here. I’m assuming the information about the specific animal in that area.





We were all pretty excited to unexpectedly stumble across some kangaroo’s.



Ponds, dams and creeks are everywhere throughout the gardens.








The Play Space here is fabulous. With covered BBQ Areas and wide open grassed areas right alongside the playground.



Which is not your average run of the mill playground.

I think like most home schooling families we spend a fair amount of time in playgrounds and most of them are fairly ho hum, so it’s always nice to come across a play area that someone has put real thought in to.



Similar to the regular spider web climbing frames that you now see in all newer playgrounds, however this has the element of movement. It spins like an old fashioned whirly gig.




Stunning large scale musical instruments are scattered throughout the play area.




Swinging is so much more fun in groups. The kids were calling this their own little ‘Claw’. Our friends at home will know what they talking about




Just before we left the gardens for the afternoon we spotted this heart shaped tree trunk. These gardens are certainly filled with love!

Old Mogo Town ~ Gold Rush Colony

Just ten minutes drive south of Bateman’s Bay is Old Mogo Town – The Gold Rush Colony.

This would be our home for the next three nights. The miner’s cabins are huge and well appointed. It was nice for us to all have some space and spread out a little for a couple days.



When you stay onsite you have free access to the Gold Rush Colony whenever you wish. Here they have recreated (and in many cases have used original buildings) as closely as possible the main street from the local gold rush town.



 In a gorgeous setting, we explored this area on more than one occasion. In this shack anywhere between 8 and 16 people would have lived. It is smaller than the cabin we are staying in just up the hill.



When you first arrived to Mogo, with gold in your sights, but no actual money, you needed to build yourself a shelter.

The idea taken straight from the aboriginal people, these humpy’s are what the miner’s called home, until hopefully they made enough money to build themselves a small shack to move in to.




It was pretty quiet when we visited and often we were the only people walking these streets.



The yellow building is the laundry, if you could afford to have your clothes laundered that was.



The local post office, here on the left, was the most important building in town. Not only did it take care of all the mail, it was the place to purchase your miner’s license and to cash in your gold.
By law all gold found had to be sold to the government.



The kids enjoyed pretending what it would’ve been like to spend a night at the Inn. The bath water was only changed after every 10th person!



Many miner’s simply had to sleep back to back sitting up, exactly as the kids are. What a way to get a great night’s sleep.


Of course no town is complete without an out house or two.




Here in the barber, come dentist, come doctor and undertaker, they displayed death masks.

The tour guide informed us this is apparently a mummified head of a local miner, not simply a mask. Personally, I think that’s a bit of an old wives tale that’s been passed on through the generations.

I’ve googled death masks and as yet haven’t been able to come up with anything that describes heads of people being mummified. If you happen to be able to shed any light please let me know.

Even if it is only a mask, it was still pretty darn gruesome and not one of us was game to touch it!!!



Inside the Post Office.




The laundry house.




These women certainly had their work cut out for them.



Lego Lover could barely even turn the washer, imagine it full of water and wet clothes.



The fully functioning miniature steam train only runs when there is enough people around to make it worth their while.



The kids were pretty impressed with the chairs carved from tree logs.



One of the original gold mines is right here for you to take a peek at. However the short stroll is taken through a newly reconstructed mine. This one has slightly more room and is considerably safer.
Still quite dark and dreary though inside.



There is always at least one friendly staff member on hand to help you out with any questions and to give you a hand at Gold Panning. Yes you can pan for and find real gold here.



Any in there? You won’t be finding any nuggets of gold here though, much to the kids disgust!! Whilst the gold is real, it is only tiny slithers of the glistening stuff.



But it’s still pretty exciting when you find some!



Little Surfer Dude cooks us up some supper in his miner’s kitchen.



The gardens are lovely here, with an abundance of flora and fauna. Including the resident peacock, ducks, geese and chickens that all roam freely around the grounds.



The cabins are nestled just a short stroll up from the Gold Rush Town and a small pool area is situated on the right, across from the cabins.

We enjoyed our time here. It would be fun to see the town alive when they hold special days throughout the year.

Bateman’s Bay

Bateman’s Bay is a sleepy seaside village about 4 hours south of Sydney and 2 hours south east of Canberra.



When telling people of our intentions to visit this area for a few days we received mixed reactions about Bateman’s so we had no idea what was awaiting us.

Let’s just say that this is one area we hope to return to and it is easy to see why many call this home and even more flock here to holiday.

Whilst the main village centre is on the bay and marina area, there are some beautiful surf and calm water beaches, along with gorgeous bushland only a few short minutes away.



We spent the morning exploring one of the calmer smaller inlet areas. With cliffs some 30 metres high and stunning rock formations, some serious exploration happened here.



Years of weathering and erosion has created many small caves, perfect to crawl inside.



Rock pools abound, even though the tide wasn’t out far enough for many of the little critters to be out and about, we still had loads of fun scrambling over the rocks from pool to pool.



Stunning coastline, we were blessed with glorious weather.



The kids love conventional indoor rock climbing so when they get the opportunity to try the real thing they always jump at it.



The moss covering this rock caught my eye. I couldn’t walk past without snapping a shot of it.



At the edge of the car park is a small playground, nowhere near as exciting as exploring the beach area though.



The minute we entered the bay area the kids spotted this Mini Golf and quickly added it to their list of things to do whilst in the area.




Mini Golf: $9 per person