We arrived at Tumbling Waters Caravan Park to a warm welcome from friends, both old and new. This place, in all our years of travelling this beautiful country, is still up there as one of our favourites.

The park itself is quite rustic with basic bathroom facilities but makes up for that in the other things it offers. The restaurant serving delicious food, the two pools, the croc feeding, the outdoor cinema, the bingo mornings and trivia nights. We have enjoyed it all and won our fair share of prizes, cash, hampers and restaurant vouchers from the bingo and trivia. Best of all it's the friendly atmosphere that we love the most, with plenty of good happy hours and even a Christmas in July celebration. It's so easy for the days here to blend into weeks and the weeks into months, which is why I haven't updated my blog for a while!

We enjoyed a great evening on Mindil Beach watching the "Pitch Black" flight display where 21 countries came together for 2 weeks to share knowledge and training, all culminating into the great airshow that we watched, finishing with the beautiful sunset that Mindil Beach is known for.

Probably our main reason for coming back up to Berry Springs this year was to catch up with Jo, Phil and the girls again as they made their way across the top of Australia. We were not disappointed as they came into Berry Springs for a quick visit and stayed nearly 4 weeks. Like our catchup in WA, we had the best time with these guys and they soon fell into the laid back lifestyle here.

We all enjoyed the plentiful seafood provided by Wayne and Di (who are very generous people) from the many fish and mud crabs and also the large SA crayfish from Barry and Marianne.

As before, the girls slept in our van every night. They started off sleeping top to toe on the lounge which converts to a king single but now as they are getting so tall and the nights so warm, we had a change about. We convinced grandad to sleep on the lounge and the girls got into bed with me. (He didn't need much persuading as we both love spending this time with the girls)

Sometimes we all went out together to do the touristy things and other times the Jones went off on their own.

We joined in with trips to the Berry Springs Nature Park to swim in the beautiful warm waters there, the visits from Lady Gaga, the carpet python from the wildlife park up the road as well as seeing a couple of the snakes that call the caravan park home, a day in Litchfield National Park, the cricket match between Melbourne Stars and Pakistan before the Mindil Markets where we enjoyed beautiful food and yummy mango slushies, Crocosaurous Cove where Phil did his "Dive of Death" He went into a clear perspex tube which was lowered into a croc enclosure and down into the water which gets you as close as possible to a croc without being eaten by one! We visited Crocodylus Park as well where we saw many more crocs and did the river cruise while the guide fed the crocs from the side of the boat. The crocs were massive and we couldn't help but respect these prehistoric creatures. We then wandered around the park and saw the many other animals that call this place home, from the lions, monkeys, peacocks and many more. We also visited the water parks including Palmerston Water Park where I went down the highest water tube with Livi. That was more fun than I expected.

I celebrated my birthday while the kids were here and Livi nominated herself as the appointed party planner. She worked hard at invitations, posters and even a pass the parcel.

My day started with a family breakfast up at the restaurant and then on to Berry Springs for swimming and snacks. We spent a good few hours enjoying the warm water and the new floaty that was just one of my birthday presents.

Happy hour that afternoon was to be my birthday party and everyone brought a plate. (With food on it, insisted Liv) It was a feast to behold and even the pass the parcel went down well. Although not keen at first, all the oldies took it in good spirit and really got into the game. It was so funny to see Bob, an eighty year old who's not known to be the happiest of people, sitting on the edge of his seat waiting for his turn and the next day as he replayed the game back, how he had to concentrate as the parcel was sent around the other way. That's a memory that will stay with me for sure!

The next day, being Sunday, we had a farewell family dinner in the restaurant and then our usual game of trivia but no winners this week. The Jones family then rolled out on Monday to continue their own adventure.

We have been so lucky to share such wonderful times with these guys and look forward to seeing them over Christmas and perhaps helping them move back into their home in mid January. We were not the only ones to miss the Jones's as they had made a big impact on our friends here too. More than once it was commented what a beautiful family and how well behaved the girls were. There has even been the odd connection through Facebook with them now.

We enjoyed some quiet lazy days after the busy hectic ones with the girls before the Rudlands returned to the park. They are another travelling family who are friends of Jo, Phil and girls. We met them in WA last Easter and they had been here at Tumbling Waters early on in Jo and Phil's stay. They were coming again to spend a few more days at this park while Pete flew to Sydney for work. We took Tam and the kids to the nature park as they hadn't been there before and enjoyed a sushi lunch that I had made for us all. We also took them up to the bingo and Elkie managed to win a breakfast voucher. We spent times in the pool but we didn't get that game of Monopoly Deal that I had promised Elkie. With her playing with friends and us doing our thing, it didn't happened. Oh well, next time.

Now, as the weeks roll on, the park is beginning to quieten down for the end of the season. We have said goodbye to many of the long termers and only a few short stay travellers are coming in these days. We are thinking about moving on ourselves now but it's always hard to drag ourselves away from this special place. The happy hours are definitely much smaller now but we still manage to share a few stories and laughs. Roll on our next visit. Will it be next year, who knows!