Andrew ‘Cosi’ Costello joins Explore SA each Wednesday to share his holiday inspirations and latest tips on exploring South Australia with friends and family.
Each week Cosi will suggest a selection of beautiful landscapes to visit, events to get involved in and fantastic activities to enjoy.
They say, and it’s true as I have witnessed it first hand, that you only have 12 summers with your kids. After they turn 13, holidaying with Mum and Dad loses its appeal. They find their own friends and interests and the family holidays with the kids are harder to come by.
Why is it then, that when our kids are young we seem to work flat out and rarely have a holiday? I think it’s a combination of a lot of things; pressures at work, poor work life balance and of course the need to pay the ever increasing bills. But we as adults and parents need to take a stance and claim back our lives with our kids.
As I write this I am sitting in the Mount Barker Caravan Park in a cabin with my four and five year old girls. It’s a Wednesday night, I’ve got that much work on I really can’t afford to be doing this but I see the importance of it. It’s daddy-daughter night.
It’s currently 11:07pm and the girls have only just stopped whinging and are in bed. Arhh, I take that back, I’ve just turned around to see my five year old has snuck out of bed and is sitting directly behind me staring at the TV show I had on about prisoners on death row. Not ideal.
Where was I? …Oh yeah. OK so think back to when you were a child and try and remember the holidays your parents took you on. My mind casts back to a houseboat holiday on the Murray River, just outside of Mannum. I must have been only seven, yet I can sit here and still remember how awesome the feeling was as the yabby net I am pulling up comes to the surface. Was there anything in it? How exciting is that feeling. I also have fantastic memories of simple things like collecting wood for the campfire, the adrenalin of seeing a snake, and fishing with my brother.
It is up to us, as adults, to create the same memories for our children. It doesn’t have to be hard, just choose a location in South Australia and make it happen.
Tonight the girls and I went down the main street of Hahndorf, ate yummy pizzas at The Haus while sucking back perhaps the best chocolate milkshakes in the state. Once we found our own cabin here in Mount Barker, we explored our cabin and the park facilities, watched some television and then had one of our regular sparkler parties on the deck. Total cost of sparkler party was around $1.20.
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By the way, it’s now 11:23am and my five year old, after watching Americans on death row (sweet dreams darling) is now laying in bed singing a song about how much she misses her dog. Who says every holiday is without its stressful moments.
It’s not easy to find time to take a break from work with the partner or family but it is important, more important than we realise. I feel very lucky that my oldest lad Harry, who has just turned 14, and I spent so many nights away in South Australia. We both have fond memories of camping under the stars in Marrabel, fishing in Port Lincoln and caving on Kangaroo Island. I’m so lucky we did because when I asked him this afternoon, did he want to come on Daddy Daughter night, he politely declined.
Look, you don’t have to travel far to take a quick nights getaway into a South Australian region. The Barossa, Fleurieu Peninsula and Murraylands are within an hours’ drive and once you’re there you can begin the priceless and timeless moments your children with remember forever.
For more information on South Australia see southaustralia.com
