Lismore

On our way north to Brisbane we decided to stop in Lismore, the only reason was to go to the lantern festival.  We had read about it and it sounded great, and it was.  We followed Dan and Kaz and the kids the whole way, kinda arrived a bit late, it was dark and not so easy to set up the van.  It was great fun travelling with another family, we entertained ourselves annoying them on the UHF all the way.  Mark even resorted to playing his ipod through the UHF!  We are finding that the showgrounds in smaller towns are often the cheapest places to stay.  So we set up for two nights.  Ended up being four vans as Kaz's parents and Uncle are also travelling at the moment.

We got up in good time and headed to the Lismore produce market, conveniently located right at the show grounds.  We stocked up on some lovely home made and home grown produce, gotta love that.  Then we went in to Lismore.  The first thing we saw was the kids craft area, needless to say we spent ages and ages there, the kids had a ball.  They even got to make these gorgeous lanterns for the festival.  Dirt Girl even made an appearance.

Charlotte of course had to have her face painted.  The kids lined up for ages, but they were so good.  Charlotte got this gorgeous pattern on her face, but Jake being Jake lined up for all that time to then only get a red dot and a red line on his arm!  Apparently he is a super hero and that's his laser!!!!

The gallery window.

Kaz's mum Pat, Zakey, Sam, Charlotte, Will and Jake all had a ride on the miniature railway.

Our little super hero.

Will, Charlotte and Dirt Girl.

We had a picnic lunch at the park and playground.  The kids went on the train.  Then we spent the rest of the afternoon looking around town, checking out the markets and listening to some great live music.  I even got to have a wander on my own to the market and the gallery.  Only a small gallery but they had some lovely pieces on wood.  Then of course we headed to the river bank for the lantern festival.

Gosh it was a fantastic evening, so pretty and magical.  I think the whole town turns out for it.  I have never seen such huge and gorgeous lanterns.  We just kept looking and looking, there were so many.  We had a great spot up on the hill and set up the chairs etc.  Was nice to sit and have dinner with a view.  They had some great music playing and then a performance was played with the lanterns, was lovely.  They even had this huge artistic board that they used as a projection screen, that at the end they burnt, as the fiery finale, the embers went so high that they were higher up than the fire works.   And of course they had the fire works, and they were so pretty.  It was just one of those fabulous nights, if you've never been to a lantern festival and you get the chance you have to do it.

The kids had a ball with glow in the dark bubbles.