Ollie Takes Aussie

A high koala-ty holiday

Originally published 16 September 2015

Mummy and Daddy love to travel. Before I came along Mummy visited lots of amazing places and saw tons of exotic animals in Africa; Daddy appears to have wandered around Europe looking at ruins and living like a pauper. But I was keen to get in on the act too. Last year was my first taste of travelling, going down to Queenstown for Mummy and Daddy's honeymoon. But this year it was even further - going overseas to Australia. And put away that chequebook, because Grandma and Grandad were paying!

At the beginning of September we were flying to Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast to spend 8 days with the Hartlands: Grandma, Grandad, Uncle Dave, Aunty Jemma and my cousins Jake and "Baby Ben". Preparations were quite intensive; Mummy spent a full day getting all the packing and arrangements finalised, while Daddy taught me to say "g'day mate" (though at least he stopped short of attempting "flaming nora" or "strewth").

It all started a bit inauspiciously with a 90 minute delay at the airport, sitting in the plane on the tarmac waiting for something to be fixed before we could take off. At least my new buddy Jake was in the seats in front of me, so I craftily managed to procure one of his books, a toy and even his plate of breakfast! You can maybe tell I've scoffed a bit in the picture of the two of us above...

That pic was taken at Australia Zoo, one of the most fun things we did on the holiday. It's a huge place filled with animals, including some like kangaroos, wombats and koalas that I'd never seen before. I even got to pat a koala, though since it was asleep and unmoving it could possibly have been a fake one; I should have checked for a gift shop tag on it.

We also watched a great show in the Crocoseum, with a display of brightly-coloured birds flying around and a couple of keepers wrangling a crocodile. There was so much to see at the zoo that I spent quite a bit of time running between things, which explained the cuts and scrapes over both my knees by the end of the day.

The Sunshine Coast was where I discoved a love of the water. My previous experience, early last year down at Mount Maunganui, only lasted about 30 seconds, but in Australia the water is so much warmer and nicer. I had my first proper paddles in the sea at Mooloolaba and Noosa beaches, which were great fun, as well as making sandcastles. It was especially good to get out in the fresh air at Noosa after I'd vomited in the car on the ride there. Hope the car rental company have a good Rug Doctor.

There's so many fun places for a family to visit on the Sunshine Coast. On the day we were originally supposed to go to the zoo it was pelting with rain, so while Daddy moaned about taking the tourism board to task over the Consumer Guarantees Act with their use of the name Sunshine Coast, we walked down to the nearby Sealife Centre instead. I enjoyed racing around with Jake, looking at all the different fishes and underwater creatures.

At a fun place called The Ginger Factory we got to have a ride on a train and a boat. The factory is all about making ginger, and I ate a yummy gingerbread man for afternoon tea, but the rides were what made it fun. The train went through the grounds and around the outside of the buildings, but the boat ride was inside, taking a voyage sailing past musical displays of people from different countries around the world, with gingerbread men hiding out in each display along the way.

We visited a town called Maleny to walk around the botanical gardens and see the views across to the Glass House Mountains; they're the big glass-shaped mounds behind me in the picture above, except my attention is more on my half-eaten biccie. The Gardens also had an aviary, where we could walk inside to have dozens of birds fly around us and settle on our shoulders.

It turned out that the biggest threat wasn't from the birds though, but a goat which managed to get inside the caged room where we'd left my pram. By the time anyone had noticed and shooed it away, it had unpacked a couple of things from my bag and eaten a serviette. Lucky it didn't find my stash of biccies.

Sadly it eventually came time to head for home and swap our t-shirts for jumpers. Everyone had had a great holiday; it was nice spending more time with Grandma and Grandad, and getting to know my cousins better. We were out and about doing so much that I was exhausted every night and went to sleep in my portacot without any trouble. Of course, the small pile of books and increasing number of cuddly toys I accrued during the trip certainly helped! I'm definitely ready now for another overseas adventure.