Day Eight - 5/4

Wet n Wild was our stop today. The weather was just brilliant, not too hot and not too cold. Add in the fact that the water was heated so the water was a nice temperature! 

The first stop was to the Aqualoop - this quote is from the website: The new ride ‘AquaLoop’ begins when the trap door is released and the rider plummets, accelerating into a massive vertical free fall drop and then up into a transparent looping slide! The slide is gut wrenching, heart-pounding and gravity-defying and takes riders to speeds of up to 60 kilometres per hour!  Brayden went on it, sadly Casey was not heavy enough (you had to weigh 40kg!)

The kids and Clint then went over to the River Rapids, and had a couple of goes of that one while I sat on the picnic benches and was the bag lady lol. 


One of the rides Clint and the kids went on was the Tornado. Its like a waterslide that goes into a huge funnel. Unfortunately the 2nd time they went on it they came off the blowup seat things and went freefalling. Casey knocked his huge and they all got a huge fright, and didn't go on it again :(  

Day Seven - 4/4

This morning we trundled off to Sea World. Our first stop was a seal show. It was quite cute actually. Unfortunately as we were leaving, Vanessa stepped over one of the benches and fell over. It turned out she broke her foot :(  There's talks of surgery down the track to re adhere a tendon onto the bone if it doesn't heal :( 

Luke and Vanessa went off to the doctors/hospital, so we took Ethan and went off to finish our day. We headed straight to the rides. Brayden was quite reserved about going on the rides, but Casey was champing at the bit!  Sadly, of the 2 thrill rides at the park, Casey was too short for one of them :(   The one that they all could get on was the Sea Viper. 

Day Six -3/4

I am tired! We spent our first full day on the Gold Coast at Movieworld! To be honest, it was a bit disappointing in size, but the kids still had a ball. We only managed to have time to go on each ride once as they had many shows throughout the day - so it obviously wasn't too small.


Our first stop was the Stunt Driver show. This was pretty awesome, they were making a small film so had to record some audience participation to include it in the mall movie. Poor Ness and Luke got picked to star in it LOL. 


Here are some photos to check out for now, I will come back later and write more.

Day Five - 2/4

Today was the day we left Brisbane and headed on down to the Gold Coast. First we headed to Yatala Pies for lunch. They are a famous pie shop in the town called Yatala, which is along the way to the Gold Coast. The pies were nice, but not fantastic I thought. I bought the Lamb Coconut Curry, so perhaps I just got a dud :)  

We had to drive up this bridge to exit Brisbane and head to the Gold Coast! Crazy!

After our stop for lunch we headed to Mt Tamborine. It was rather an odd feeling going there as we spent 30 minutes going up winding roads with nothing but forest around us, so hitting the peak and finding a town up there! The views were fantastic, we could even see all the way to the Gold Coast! We were going to do a couple of the walks, but when we tried to find parking, there was NONE! So instead we decided to just head straight to the Gold Coast. 

Views within Mt Tamborine.

We went straight to our accommodation as Vanessa, Luke and Ethan were already there. After unloading all of our stuff, we headed for a walk down to the beach, went to the pub and then walked home. We decided to go check out Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. We got completely lost trying to find our way into the place, but we eventually got there LOL. 

Our Gold Coast accomodaton. 

Hard Rock Cafe!

Day Four - 1/4

Today we had a bit of a sleep in and had a more relaxing day as we knew our week in the Gold Coast would be hectic and tiring. We went to the local (but omg huge) shopping centre called Chermside and watched the Fast and the Furious 5. Afterwards we went to lunch in the food hall there and had lunch with an old friend that I met on the internet about 15 years ago!


We decided to go for a drive at night through the city. The lighting was just spectacular, with Story Bridge lit up, the Wheel of Brisbane full of lights etc. Magical.

Day Three 30/4

Today we decided to catch the local train into the city and have a look around. It took around 40 minutes to get into the city, but surprisingly it went quite quickly. First off we walked down the one of the piers (1 on the map) to catch the ferry across to the other side of the water where Southbank is (2 on the map). Southbank is a cultural/family orientated area with free water playgrounds, cafes, boardwalks etc. It's such a nice, relaxing area.We saw a chocolate cafe and decided to pop in for morning tea. It was devine! Beats Margaret River Chocolate Factory hands down! 

We went for a walk to the pier and decided to take some trips up and down the Brisbane River to check out the scenery.We went back to 1 on the map, and then around to 2.. Where we stopped off, was a short walk to the Queen St Mall. We meandered our way thru the mall and headed back up to the train station (marked by the oval). 

Here are a couple of random photos taken during the day.

Day Two - 29/4

Day Two

An early morning rise this morning, so that we could make the 45 minute drive to Beerwah which is where Australia Zoo is. Along the way we saw the beautiful Glass House Mountains in the distance. Australia Zoo is unlike any other zoo that I have been to. It is just awesome for the kids (and adults!). As soon as we walked in, there were 2 staff members standing there with a beautiful Blue Macaw and also a lizard of some sort. You could pat and get photos taken with these animals. Throughout the day they have feeding times for different animals, and there you can interact/pat the animals and get your photos taken with them. They also have times around the zoo for you to get photos (tho not interacting) with different animals. You can take photos, or use the one provided by the zoo - however they come at a cost! $9.95 per 6x4 print :(

We paid for a few different animals - a family shot with me holding a koala, a family shot with the boys holding an alligator and also a photo of Clint and Brayden with an eagle. We also went to the famous crocoseum and watched their show Wildlife Warriors.
After we finished at Australia Zoo, we went for a scenic tour up to the Sunshine Coast. The Sunshine Coast consists of a group of several towns. The towns we visited were Coolum Beach, Yaroomba, Maroochydore and Mooloolaba. The towns very much reminded me of Yallingup/Bunbury/Margaret River region.
We're heading into the city tomorrow, aswell as Southbank. Should be fun :D