BIG4 Bellarine Holiday Park

My husband and I purpose built this park in 2009. When I first wrote the submission, I was pregnant with my first child and 28 years old. It took five years of wrangling with bureaucracy, lawyers, VCAT, councillors and a handful of objectors before we could put our dreams in to place.

I wanted this park to be a place of discovery where children, parents, grandparents and friends could actively engage in the very simple joy of 'being'. To laugh until their tummies hurt, to have freedom and space to play, jump, swing, fly, pedal, daydream, hop, skip and all the while be safe and happy in the inner folds of family.

So at the beginning of 2009, we had a 30 acre bare paddock with sheep on it and we needed to create what is almost a small town! By then we had three young children - 5, 3 and 1 years old, and was pregnant with our fourth! The business started operating on September of the same year. We moved our three little boys and ourselves onsite for the last 3 months of the project. It was common knowledge amongst the hundreds of tradesmen that if they found a little 'Bone Boy' they were to gently scoop him up onto their machinery and safely deposit him back to Mum & Dad. Amongst a true cavalcade of machinery, my three little boys flourished and became a part of this mammoth project and story.

The one day it was time to open. We shut our eyes, crossed our fingers and toes and then took a little peek to see if anyone would come and stay - and that they did! Our fourth arrived in December 2009. The mission - Park and family were complete!

It's true that we started as a paddock and turned it into a Park, which may not have worked. It was a risk but this Park of ours has been a true labour of love and we are so proud of where it is at and where it continues to go.

Our heart's burst that friends and families have joined our us in making memories here of their very own!

This family of ours is thankful.

Our warmest regards,

Sophie & Tim Bone

(and our boys Jack, Lachie, Ted & Max Bone!)