An early start! But we made it to the airport and then to Canberra safely. The kids enjoyed the short flight. Although I think they enjoyed watching ‘Go Jetters’ on the touch screens more. Alex sat by the window and enjoyed seeing us fly in the clouds, and he noticed the trailing vortices on descent. We found our apartment and took a walk to the shops, had some lunch and then headed to the Arboretum. Alex had been really keen to go to the park there. The park looked as amazing as it’s pictures. But it was busy, and not as much fun as we’d thought – there were very limited ways of doing things. The boys really appreciate open ended play so much more.
The fossil and dinosaur museum. The day started off well with the kids exploring the models in the garden, and then making giant dinosaur skeleton jigsaws. We went up to the main exhibit and Alex barely stopped! I suggested we slow down and Alex said he’d go through again. But when he got to the end he didn’t go through again, and we spent more time in the shop! He really wanted gemstones and rocks and we found a nice set that was even on sale.
At the Kanga Cup opening ceremony and met up with Vio’s team. Alex was very excited about his dad being in the parade! Vio’s team did really well, and got through to semi-finals, and then through to the final! unfortunately they lost on the day. But what a great result to come 2nd out of 20 teams.
Reptile Zoo. This place was a much anticipated stop – but it was much smaller than I had imagined! The kids got to touch plenty of lizards and snakes, and see more that were not for touching. They befriended 2 other boys and we headed round as a group. There was an outside play area that the kids grew tired of pretty quickly, so we left. There was of course a stop off at the gift shop, and I was attempting to limit the damage they did on their spending money on plastic trinkets they’d soon break!
Walk-in Aviary. What a fabulous place! Except for the fact I’d prefer the birds were free of course. But we were given fruit and mealworms and able to hand feed the most beautiful birds!All variety of parrot! So many landed on us, and took food from our hands. Alex loved it! Daniel enjoyed it too and was not afraid. We managed to find a few feathers too.
Lake Burley-Griffin. More than once we found ourselves walking near to and exploring parts of the lake. I’m not sure of the name of the spot we walked across a bridge too (a little island with a monument on it). We played in nature, and Alex found 2 little blue claws! We also spotted a sleeping possum in a tree hollow 🙂
National Museum of Australia. We didn’t last long here, the general theme is of course Australiana. I know bugger all about it and to be honest my interest in Australian history is almost non-existent!
Questacon! Our favourite place. It was so busy being school holidays of course, and we could have spent an entire week there. As it was, we spent the whole of one day. There was a section for young kids, unfortunately we were only permitted to remain there for 30 minutes. Alex got stuck into the amazing water table/play. Daniel was into the construction and then the bakery. The exhibits were fabulous and we were a bit rushed. Alex loved the interactive gallery and did the 6m freefall – twice! We built a marble run out of pipes and wood, partook in model flying tests, attended a talk on predators (Alex knew so much and gave an answer at every opportunity, even when not called upon to do so. He often gave answers to things others did not know, others much older than him! Thanks Wild Kratts!) It was a long,hard day for Daniel. And I realised how much Alex doesn’t conform to things that others his age would so readily do – hands up for answers, shying away from an adult etc.
The playgrounds in Canberra were very average, and we didn’t spend long in many of them. The best was a castle type design with underground chambers! We returned here as it was also close to the lake.
Alex and I spent many evenings playing ‘rat a tat cat’. Alex added up our scores (adding in the tens not just ones!) He got the lowest overall score for the week, but he asked who won the most games so we worked out that it was me. On other evenings Alex joined in with the team to attend the cinema and watch ‘Ice Age’. We also had a celebration after the semi-final with all of the other families. Alex enjoyed being around the other kids, and played with one or two of the younger siblings at matches. He saw the boys playing a snake like game and of course we had to get it for him when we returned to Melbourne.
The flight back home was less exciting with the lack of screens! Daniel got to sit by the window and probably enjoyed it more than Alex did. Alex was quite put off by the ear popping. We had a great week, but it was nice to be home 🙂