Noosa with Nannie

I've been a bit slack on the blog in the last month. I've actually noticed that this is a pattern with me. Looking back on the past three years I always go through a blog drought in the winter. It must be the dark nights that make me want to just switch off and watch TV or read rather than try and write, which I find quite challenging. On top of that we've been very busy with Nannie (my mom) who visited us for the past three weeks. Sadly we said goodbye to her yesterday morning, but we had a lot of fun while she was here. The highlight (besides just seeing Ella and my mom continue to form their special relationship) was having a three day "girls weekend" in Noosa last week.

Ella, my mom and I headed up last Thursday morning, staying in the Nautilus Resort, located pretty much in the middle of Noosa Heads and Noosaville. This was my second visit to Noosa, Andy and I holidayed here in September 2013 and absolutely loved it. Unfortunately Andy could not join us this time as he had to work. I am very lucky at the moment being part-time and can be fairly flexible with the days I work, so could rearrange that week to have my two days off on a Thursday and Friday to take a long weekend.

We flew with Virgin Australia and were lucky to have an extra seat in our row of three, giving Ella lots of space to crawl around. She was pretty good on the flight, which was just over two hours. That's actually a pretty short flight for our jet-setting baby! I arranged for an airport transfer with Rentacar Noosa, who I would highly recommend. This was the first time I've felt like the car seat they had was properly installed (we've even had one transfer in Melbourne where we had to install the car seat ourselves!), new, clean and it was no problem to have a rear facing one, which is much safer for babies. Ah, the things you have to organise when you travel with a baby!

Anyway we arrived at our resort around noon. We had a two bedroom place which was a good size for us. Not the most modern of apartments but a good price and the resort had a swimming pool, heated spa, and tennis court. As mentioned above it was located about a 20 minute walk from both Noosa Heads (the beach side) and Noosaville (the river side). Once we got settled in we headed towards Noosaville for some lunch and exploring.

Nautilus Resort Noosa

We had fish and chips at Red Emporer by the river, which Ella enjoyed, although for her we peeled off the batter of the fish and she didn't have any chips - I think she is still too young for anything like that. We then browsed a few shops, stopped for Gelato, and took Ella down to the sandy banks in the river. Boy did she love it!! She happily crawled through the sand, stopping to do what looked like "sand angels" and very interested in all the ducks and pelicans in the water. While walking through Noosaville we took note of many delicious looking restaurants, however ended up spending the rest of our holiday in Noosa Heads so didn't get the chance to try any of them out.

On Friday miss Ella woke nice and early so I took her for a walk and ended up at Little Cove Coffee, which is where Andy and I went for coffees on our last visit to Noosa. It was very nostalgic, remembering our trip from nearly three years ago. We had just moved to Australia, had only been married about a year, and were child free!

Walk to Little Coffee Cove - not a bad view!

On the walk back Ella fell asleep and so I parked her beside the pool in our resort while mom and I got our books and planned on relaxing.



That was short-lived, of course, as soon as my mom came to the pool with fresh cups of tea Ella woke up and wanted to play. It was pretty warm by then, so we got changed into our bathing suits and took Ella for a swim in the pool. When I say pool, I mean "heated spa", as the pool seemed a bit too cold. I will say it was too cold for Ella, but really it was too cold for me! The spa was the perfect temperature however and we spent the rest of the morning there splashing around with Ella.

Pre Swimming snack - a yummy pear. 

In the afternoon we headed to Noosa Heads and browsed the shops on Hasting Street. Ella had the most epic nap in her pram, allowing us to get not only a Gelato but a glass of wine as well! We tried the gelato at Nitrogenie, where they make the ice cream in front of you with fresh eggs, cream, and real food ingredients, and then frozen with liquid nitrogen. It was pretty expensive as far as gelato goes, but very delicious and creamy and a fun experience to see it being made in front of you.





After devouring our gelato (and regretting not getting two!) we strolled along Hastings Street and noticed all of the inviting looking bars and restaurants, with outdoor seating in the beautiful sunshine. We thought we'd risk it and try and get a sneaky glass of wine in at Miss Moneypennys, and my very well behaved daughter slept almost the whole time! When she woke up she was super calm and cuddely and generously let us finish up our wine while sitting on my lap. If only it was always this easy!

We took Ella down to the beach after that, so that she could crawl around and burn some energy for a while. She loved the sand again, along with the Bush Turkeys, that can be seen frequently around Noosa. We ended up getting a pizza for dinner and ate it on the beach while watching the sunset before heading back to our resort for the night. We got the "pizza on the beach" idea from a dad and daughter that were doing the same. The little girl was about four years old and they were having the best time together. After enquiring about where to get the pizza from, we sat down to eat with Ella. Pizza with a one-year-old on the beach is slight less relaxing than pizza with a four-year-old. Lesson learned! I did, however, manage to keep pizza from getting on her cute cardigan, which I was pretty proud of.

On Saturday was our last full day. In the morning we all went to Little Cove Coffee for breakfast, where Ella enjoyed a pumpkin, sage and pear quiche which was very yum.



We then took Ella back to the beach for a closer look at the water. She was very intrigued and I think confused as to why the water kept coming closer, and then going away. Prior to this she has only really experienced water in the bath or a swimming pool, so this was a whole new territory. She got a big shock as she tried crawling towards the water but then was met with a little wave that splashed her in the face. She was not too happy about that!! After that it took a bit of convincing to get her near the water again, so we spent some time letting her experience the water running over her feet, and eventually she seemed to get over her initial distrust of it.

After getting Ella changed into some dry clothes we went for lunch, followed by some shopping for Ella on Hastings St. Ella fell asleep and after a bit of searching we found a spot in the sun to have some wine. Rather optimistically we ordered a whole bottle, so of course she woke up as soon as it was opened! She was less willing to sit nicely while we drank wine this time, so after a glass each we decided to take her to the beach again for more crawling time. Luckily we were able to take the remainder of the bottle of wine with us, which we enjoyed once we got Ella back to the resort and into bed.

We played on the beach for a while again - Ella was super interested in some kids playing with a soccer ball nearby. I felt a bit sorry for her as she really looked like she wanted to join in, and kept crawling towards them and pointing at them. She also amazed us with some new skills in being able to pull herself up and climb, as seen in the video below:

I know this looks like just a very boring video of a baby doing normal baby things, but to her mum and Nannie this was the most amazing thing ever.

And that was it! Sunday morning seemed to come around way too quickly, and I really wished that we had at least one more day. Noosa was the perfect place for us to escape the Melbourne winter and just chill out with Ella. It was nice to just take each day as it came and not feel like we had to "do" a lot of stuff to get the most out of our days. We were happy to just go with the Ella-flow, which is basically they key to enjoying a holiday with a baby or young child.

We did lots of other fun things with my mom which I will write about in our next post. Of course now the next countdown is on until we see my parents again, which is only four months away when we meet them in California for Christmas!