This cafe serves lovely smoothies and light meals. They have an airy sunny atrium seating area where mums with prams and babies can gather. There is lots of seating and the tables are cleaned regularly. They have loyalty cards so you get free drinks after buying a certain number. Most coffee shops only have a loyalty card system for hot drinks but this bb's cafe has a loyalty card for hot drinks and another loyalty card for cold drinks. It's a nice point of difference.

I'm very happy to make Mt Barker Pet Care Centre my regular shop for supplies for my pets. Very importantly they do not sell live animals and support animal shelters and rescue groups instead. They sell a wide range of products and quality pet foods. I buy Hills cat food and the shop keeps your Hills Loyalty Card in a filing system and mark each purchase for you over time. The shop owner was willing to price match another local pet shop for a product.

This store sells a variety of clothes for infants, children, teenagers and adults. I particularly like their range of beautiful clothes for infants and little children. The clothes all seem of good quality and are very well priced. You would easily pay half as much again for similar clothes at designer places like Pumpkin Patch. You can join their loyalty card program for a one off fee of $5 which entitles you to 10% off full priced items all year around. The staff are really friendly and enjoy little children running around their store playing.

I like Surf 'n' Chooks chips and potato cakes. The chips are crispy and delicious and the potato cakes are proper battered slices of fresh potato made fresh. If you order a few, they always seem to throw in an extra for free. The chickens are better than other takeaway places in Mt Barker but definitely not mind blowing. I can't find a proper charcoal chicken in Mt Barker...
The service is friendly and I've never had to wait long. EFTPOS is handy.

I've been told that Mt Barker Corner makes good takeaway food but I was disappointed. The hot chicken was lacking in flavour and dry and the "potato cakes" were preformed frozen fare, not the proper battered slices of potato made fresh.
I also find it hard to get a park and enter and exit from the carpark given the location right on the corner of a major roundabout.

I was pretty impressed with the play equipment. $5 for my 1 year old sounded expensive at first but when I saw how much fun she had I changed my mind. The food and drinks are reasonably expensive of course. A few things caught my attention though - there was a large accumulation of dust and debris on top of one of the no go areas of play equipment and the jumping castle had numerous sticky tape repairs. When I arrived, all of the tables were used so a lady took us to a table at the back corner of the room and refitted a leg that had fallen off the table so we could use it. We were eventually moved to a good table when other patrons left but it wasn't great being placed at a dodgy table. I felt that the place needed a good clean and some decent repairs.
My daughter had a lovely time and it was nice having a bite to eat and not having to cook or wash the dishes afterwards!

Approximate cost: $5 entry

I had the unfortunate experience to rent a property through this agent for 4 years. All they care about is getting as much money out of you as possible. Every year the rent goes up but no repairs are ever done. When you request repairs to be done, they promise to pass on the message to the landlord (who "does all his own repairs") and nothing happens. When you chase it up, the landlord eventually comes out and refuses to do repairs, claiming that he didn't install this or that and a tenant must have installed it so he's not liable to repair it (included a celing fan that didn't work - in the eyes of the law the landlord must repair any household fixture regardless of who installed it). During the time I leased this property, the agents were rarely contactable, got our names wrong constantly and didn't even know the contents of the lease agreement. When we vacated the property, the agent was a bully and performed the final inspection with a view to finding as many faults as possible to take bond money from us. The agent blamed wear and tear on us and took fault with ridiculous things like uneven soil in the garden and rocks in the backyard. When the agency issued the bond return form, they provided written instructions to fill out the form, sign and return it to them but leave the final bond amount to be returned to us blank. These instructions, if followed, give them in effect a blank cheque to take as much bond as they like from you. The Residential Tenancies Tribunal gives explicit instructions to NEVER SIGN A BLANK BOND FORM and it's written all over the form to never sign a blank form for this very reason, yet Barry Plant instruct their tenants to hand over a blank signed form - so dodgy!
NEVER RENT WITH THESE AGENTS!!!

Shopping at Ikea always takes ages - the place is so large and designed to lead you through every section. While there are lots of excellent products on display, they aren't always in stock and it's incredibly frustrating to spend ages searching and comparing furniture to decide and then discover that it's out of stock. It's hard to get hold of a customer service representative in the pick up area. I do like the downstairs area with all the kitchen furniture, textiles etc. - always good value and you can pick your items off the shelf then and there. As a parent, I found the lifts very small and difficult to get in and out of especially when so many other parents are also in the same situation. I was disappointed with the baby change/feeding room on offer - very small and the chair was uncomfortable. The "Baby Oasis" in the food court was positioned right next to the industrial kitchen, making it a noisy disturbing place to breastfeed. Again, the chair was uncomfortable and unsuited to breastfeeding. Perhaps Ikea needs to ask the Australian Breastfeeding Association for advice on what sort of facilities they should provide for mothers and babies. After all, families are probably their biggest customer base so they should provide comfortable and suitable facilities for parents. Having said all this, I will continue to shop at Ikea because the products are well priced and you can take your time trying before you buy without being hassled by salespeople like you would be in a regular furniture/homewares shop. Another positive for Ikea is that you get free parking if you make a purchase at Ikea, so that's another saving. It's also easy to park and load up once you've made your purchase. There are self service counters if you want to do it yourself - something that I like doing for a few items (like in Safeway).

Approximate cost: $depends on the item you are buying

I was cared for by the wonderful midwives at the Family Birth Centre throughout my pregnancy. They were informative, supportive of me as a first time mum and ran a great antenatal class. When I went into labour I was transferred out of the Family Birth Centre for precautionary continuous monitoring. The midwife who attended the birth of my daughter was very special. She read my birth preferences and did everything she could to keep to my wishes including keeping the doctors from getting involved where it wasn't necessary. After the safe arrival of my daughter, she arranged a lovely private room upstairs where my partner could stay with me for the 2 days I was in hospital with my new baby. I was blown away by the warm, caring and supportive staff at the Mercy during my stay. The room was comfortable, spacious, beautifully decorated and made me feel great. As a public patient, I was left wondering why you would pay for private health insurance when you get such great care in the public system at the Mercy.
The after-care has also been excellent - two visits to my home by midwives on day 1 and 2 after leaving hospital, day-stays in the Mercy Breastfeeding Support Centre and a Physiotherapy class for my well-being.

Approximate cost: $0

I was recommended by RACV to go to Tyres Plus in Thomastown for professional child restraint fitting. The lady who fitted our baby car seat was extremely informative, explained how to fit the car seat so we could remove and refit the seat in the future, attached a special buckle that vastly improved the stability of the car seat and advised us how to get our baby in and out of the car seat safely. She discussed safety concerns that have been advised by hospital staff and the right time to adjust the baby car seat to forwards facing. I was impressed with the follow up care - we can go back to have the child restraint harness adjusted to fit our child as s/he grows at no charge. We received full paperwork to prove that the car seat has been professionally fitted. It took about 30 minutes and the lady was really friendly and helpful.

Approximate cost: $30