A November trip to Queensland - the Brisbane bits

In late October Anto headed up to Brisbane to work for 3 weeks. It felt like he had only just returned from his month long US and UK work trip and he was off again.  This time, since he wasn't going to be quite so many thousands of kilometres away we thought we would join him for some of the trip.

After his first week of peace and solitude we headed up to Brisbane on a late Saturday afternoon flight. Even though we are regular fliers to Queensland this seemed to be a particularly long journey.  The flight was delayed leaving Canberra, then they had swapped the plane from a 717 with an i-pad entertainment system to a Dash-8 which, is slow, loud, and has no entertainment system for the 3 year old (and I had not packed anything to keep her amused assuming we'd have Peppa Pig on demand). Then we sat on the ground, with the air turned off, for an extra half an hour and finally had to circle Brisbane for awhile due to air traffic control issues in Brisbane.  It was a long flight and Astrid had to make do with reading the flight safety card over and over again...... much to the amusement of fellow passengers. Luckily my Mum had changed to the same flight so I had someone to chat to Astrid while I dealt with a wiggly Søren, who did end up sleeping most of the flight (as per usual).

We eventually met Anto at the airport, late and tired but happy to be finally there. We bid farewell to my Mum who was heading home to the Sunshine Coast and made our way to Anto's apartment (with only a little getting lost). The kids were way too excited to see their Dad, and had a great time trashing his apartment and staying up late eating dinner. Eventually they decided to sleep, but of course were up at the crack of Queensland dawn (aka barely 5am) to start our Sunday Brisbane adventure.

After breakfast we decided to head out for a walk and wandered towards the nearby Roma Street Park.  Astrid was keen for a play at the good looking playground, and Søren quickly realised that now he can stand up (if not actually walk) playgrounds are fun!

We eventually dragged the kids away from the playground and walked around the park some more.  We had a bit of a sit down under some lovely jacaranda trees and a walk around the large pond (where there were some huge lizards hiding in the scrub), and a squiz at the waterfall.  If it wasn't rapidly getting extremely hot we could have spent much longer playing there and exploring.

Søren had commenced napping in the ergo and Astrid was looking tired and hot so we headed off to catch a train to Southbank.  Trains are pretty exciting for 3 year-olds so Astrid's day was made (although she still requested a ferry trip to complete her day). We had a wander around the Southbank markets with a sleeping Søren. I managed to get at least one small bit of shopping (of course things for the kids) before Anto refused to let me look at any more stuff and instead we headed for the cool and some coffee and milkshakes in a cafe.

A bit more market shopping and it was time to catch the train back to the apartment for enforced kiddy napping time. It was now very hot, and we had afternoon activities planned so rest time it was.

After not quite enough rest for either child we headed out again in the heat for a brisk walk down to catch the ferry to Kangaroo point to listen to some music.  We of course took longer to get there than planned and missed the city hopper ferry we wanted, so had a bit of a wait for the next ferry. Astrid was excitedly watching all the other ferries go past and had been hanging out all day for her ferry ride.  Both kids loved the half hour journey down the river, even if the adults were over it quickly.

Once at Kangaroo point we sat in the shade, listened to some music and ate some bikkies.  After while the kids got restless we wandered to the nearby playground to have a play. It had the safest baby swing I have every seen, but Søren enjoyed it and it started his new love affair with swings.

We eventually dragged Astrid and Søren away from yet another playground (we were the mean parents apparently) and caught the slightly shorter ferry route back.  A 15 minute walk in the hot and we made it back to the apartment.  A quick pack and we were in the car for the drive to the Sunshine Coast.  Both kids refused napping in the hour long drive (much to our surprise given their tiredness) but were chipper again once they arrived at their Grandparents place.

It was another late night by the time they calmed down, ate dinner and got to bed, but the tiredness eventually kicked in.  Anto had to be back in Brisbane for work for the week but headed back at silly o'clock on the Monday morning. Lucky for him the kids were up nice and early to see him leave!

More about Astrid and Søren's Sunshine Coast swimming and eating adventures in the next post. For now I'll finish our Brisbane adventures. On the Friday we had arranged to head back to Brisbane to collect Anto so he could spend the weekend with us on the Sunshine Coast. I had also arranged a catch up with my friends Tania and Michelle.

We were meeting Tania and Michelle for lunch at QUT, where Tania works.  After a long drive down to Brisbane, where Astrid blissfully napped and Søren was very, very cranky, we eventually located parking -  and Michelle and Tania (only a bit later than what we hoped).  We headed to a cafe on campus where we had lunch and a chat and we finally all got to meet Eloise, Michelle's new addition who had arrived since our last catch-up.

All too soon Michelle and Tania had to depart and Mum and I took the kids for a walk through the Botanical Gardens and to the playground. Do you notice a theme with playgrounds? On the walk through the Botanic Gardens we noticed a huge lizard beside one of the tracks. I stopped and asked Astrid if she could see something. She whispered 'yes'. When I asked what she saw, she whispered back excitedly - 'it's a dinosaur'.  Cracking up several passers by.

Leaving the dinosaur we headed to the playground. It was very hot and very bright and we'd accidentally left the kids hats in the car, so it wasn't going to be a long play. Søren is now a huge fan of slippery dips and swings and was thoroughly enjoying himself. Astrid had a go on everything and then made friends with a random 8 year old girl until we dragged her off to go find Anto (again I wasn't her favourite parent for making her leave).

After only minor getting lost on the QUT campus we located the car, and had a fight with the GPS and it's lack of signal, but eventually made it to Anto's apartment where he was waiting to head back up the Coast.  Despite leaving Brisbane not too late, it was long and slow drive back.  We eventually made it in time for dinner (even if the kids missed their customary afternoon swim). Astrid was placated with the suggestion of a beach outing with her Dad the next day.  More about that later.

The Victorian Road Trip Part 2 - Ballarat

Only about half an hour after our lunch in Creswick we made it into Ballarat and located our next motel. An upgrade on the previous night, in size and cleanliness (even if it was still circa 1970s), we fed Soren, unpacked, warmed up and decided we needed an afternoon of activity after many hours in the car.

We headed to the Ballarat botanic gardens.  It was very cold and damp (but not actively raining). Soren was in his snowsuit and Astrid was rugged up so we decided to walk off our sore legs and enjoyed our wander around the gardens. They aren't huge but were full of interesting old (and big) trees, and there were lovely paths to wander around, ponds to look at and puddles to avoid.

We then headed across the road to Lake Wendouree for a wander along the lake foreshore and a chat to the overly friendly swans. There had obviously been a lot of rain as everything was soaked and the lake was trying to escape onto the paths.  Despite it being freezing it was still quite picturesque and in nicer weather we would have walked further around the lake.

The playground adjacent to the Lake and opposite the Botanic Gardens was pretty impressive (again our reliable source, aka April hadn't let us down).  Astrid enjoyed her play, although the dampness meant the playground wasn't utilised to it's fullest capacity.  Even so, we had to drag her away kicking and screaming as it was rapidly getting towards dinner and somewhat arctic temperatures. We did promise to come back for a play again the next day.

We then drove into the main shopping area for a look around and to obtain some food.  While in search of a supermarket we had a quick wander of the shops and decided on our old favourite of 'hotel picnic' for dinner.  We were tired and it was getting late, so going out for dinner with over tired children wasn't particularly appealing. The hotel had a toaster and microwave, so with the aid of a Coles we found suitable microwavable meals and a BBQ chicken and headed back to the hotel to eat and get the kids into bed.  Soren was unconscious before even finishing his milk, Astrid resisted for quite awhile and then gave in about 1 minute before Soren decided to reawaken and refuse to be put down.

Our dreams of uninterrupted patisserie consumption were put on hold while we tried to convince him to sleep. Eventually we consumed the French delicacies (gateaux opera and salted caramel and chocolate tart) in between patting and rocking him..... not quite the lunch time experience but still damn good patisserie!  After 2 hours we gave in, told Soren he could just sleep in our bed and all tried to get some sleep.

The motel was a vast improvement over the previous night in quality and temperature but the 8 month old trying to grow teeth robbed us of quite a bit of sleep.  We opted for a breakfast of fruit toast in our hotel room while we packed up and got ready for the mornings activities.

The weather forecast had promised a top of 7 degrees and possible hail. It didn't disappoint. The snowsuit and warm coats were again pulled out and we headed back to the park so Astrid could have another play before it was time to meet up with April and Eliza. Soren eventually managed to have a sleep in the ergo while we walked around, checked out the market by the lake, and the sun came out just long enough to make the lake look pretty and to lull us into believing it might be a nice day.

We met April and Eliza at Piper's cafe near the Lake for morning tea cake and coffee. Astrid was pretty insistent on wanting sticky date cake for her morning tea, and then told Nic off 'for wasting her cream' when she dared to have a taste that was deemed too big.  Astrid and Eliza had a lovely play together while Soren napped and we ate, then we decided to let the kids loose at the park.

Despite being cold, it wasn't actively raining, hailing or snowing so the little girls had a wonderful time playing while the bigger girls chatted and Anto toddler wrangled.  Astrid did insist that Eliza gave her lots of hugs, and they were partners in crime on the jumping castle.

After a couple of hours playing, we dragged Astrid away (complete with a tantrum) so we could get on the road for our afternoon of driving.  Both girls had a whale of a time together, and it's a shame we don't live closer.  Astrid did eventually get over the trauma of leaving both the park and Eliza and was placated with more Ben and Holly, for our drive South towards Port Campbell and the start of our Great Ocean Road sightseeing.