Crystal Mountain

We took our kids (7 and 11) there during a trip to Ak in the school holidays, and found that it was a great option to keep the little monsters happy. There's plenty to do, including a fairly large indoor playground with its own cafe so you can sit and relax while the kids are doing their thing. Outdoors, there are entertaining dinosaurs placed around the grounds and a range of alive animals as well, including apalcas, ponies, and various birds including peacocks, etc. (You can also buy small bags of feed for the animals). There's also a small rollercoaster and a few other rides. Then there's the Crystal Mountain venue itself, which comprises another cafe with a wider range of food, a shop selling various crystal-related trinkets, and a "cave" where you can see a range of crystals and the bones of extinct creatures. We thought the kids might be bored by this part of it but they loved it all. There's something a bit crusty and damp about Crystal Mountain and it feels sort of 1980s, but this aspect almost added to the sense of fun and surprise. The combination of fun things is so wrong that it's right! One thing we weren't enamored of was the small cockroach on the cafe table, which escaped before we could squash it, and the toilets were really stinky. But those are relatively small negatives when there's so much to enjoy. My advice is to get there while it still exists, as it feels like housing subdivisions are slowly squeezing its perimeters.

Awesome place to visit, lots of tame animals to pet & feed & heaps for kids to do. The food is great but not expensive & the crystals & crystal shop are mind blowing!

After scrolling through Crystal Mountain's "New Arrivals" email, I chanced upon their agate and carnelian bangles. I have a lot of earrings and rings, but not bangles. I visited their store to check them out. The retail assistant is helpful, friendly, never pushy nor impatient. She showed me the various shades of agate, and carnelian, with varying width and circumferences. The fun part is trying them on, the hard part is deciding which to buy. Lol! Eventually I selected the one that suits, with my husband's blessing. The retail assistant said, "that's a good choice, it goes with your jade pendant on your necklace." Bless her heart! If you are into crystal pieces of art and jewellery, or sitting in crystal caves just to take a photo, or simply enjoy the total experience, Crystal Mountain in Swanson is the place to come to. They have a wide variety, from "swords", birds, elephants, guasha, jewellery of all sorts...