Holiday in Peregian Beach Part 3
With a forecast of thunderstorms on the last full day of our holiday, I pre-booked tickets to the Sea Life Aquarium in Mooloolaba for us. Pre-booking at least a day before gives you 20% off the cost of tickets, which are $39 per adult (kids 3 and under are free). Not a cheap activity, but I was feeling rather desperate after the downpour we had on Monday.
Tuesday morning we headed off to the Aquarium, which was about half an hour drive from our Airbnb. We stopped at The Pool Café in Peregian Springs for some breakfast on the way. The café is part of a members club and overlooks their beautiful pool, which was behind a locked glass wall. Ella was desperate to get to the pool, and tried to climb under the glass wall to get to it. The girl certainly loves to swim!
Ella reluctantly left the café with us after we promised her we were going to see “the fishies”. She is obsessed with Finding Nemo at the moment so we thought she’d love the aquarium. We arrived about half an hour after opening and had to queue up for about 15 minutes before getting in and realizing we could have waited in the shorter line as we had pre-booked tickets. D’oh! What a rookie mistake. My dad would be so disappointed in me… on family trips he made sure we got up at the crack of dawn and we always got to theme parks exactly when they opened to beat the crowds. That’s usually my intention but I don’t seem to have the organisational skills to actually make it happen. (Probably something to do with not having my dad there to wake us up at 6am.)
Anyway, Ella enjoyed the aquarium for about 10 minutes. She was able to reach in one tank and touch a starfish and a sea cucumber which was fun. But she pretty much lost it when we went into the Ocean Tunnel. It was super cool with huge sharks and stingrays swimming around as you walked through a glass tunnel, but Miss Ella was desperate to go in the exit, instead of the entrance. We did try to explain that they both led to the same thing, but that kind of logic is lost on a two year old. She basically screamed the majority of the time, until we gave in and let her have her dummy. She wasn’t the only screaming child in the Ocean Tunnel so you can guess how fun that part of the aquarium was for all the parents. Yay for family trips!
After the ocean tunnel we visited the Sea Lions and Octonauts display area, which Ella liked, but were pretty crowded. Next we took her to the kids soft play area, which was conveniently beside a café. I swear there is a soft play/toddler play area in like every major attraction in Australia, which I am forever grateful for. We spent just under two hours in the aquarium, where Ella bounced between being delighted with the fishies, and super pissed off about something (probably another child looking at or playing with what she wanted to look at).
The straw that broke the camel’s back was one of those stupid rides for toddlers that you need to put $2 in for a 20 second ride… you know the ones that are often found in shopping centres and grocery stores? There was a Finding Nemo one with 3 clownfish to sit on inside the café. Ella was perfectly happy to just sit on her fish until another little girl came along and her dad put $2 in the slot and the fish started moving in a slow circle. Great. Ella’s face lit up and she was having the time of her life… until it stopped. She frantically tried pushing the button to make it move, but of course I refused to put $2 in the thing so it didn’t start up again. I managed to convince her it was broken and distract her with something else while Andy finished up his coffee, but then of course another dad came along and put another $2 in the ride. It would be an understatement to say Ella was “unhappy” that the ride started again and she was not on it. If there was ever a cue to leave a place, this was it.
When we got out of the aquarium we were surprised by bright blue skies and no absolutely no sign of the predicted thunderstorms. I tried very hard not to be annoyed that we had wasted our time and money in the aquarium when it was actually really nice weather. Lesson learned: don’t pre-book tickets based on a weather report! Wait until the actual day and see what happens.
At this point it was too early for Ella’s nap so we drove 15 minutes to the Buderim Forest. We did a lovely walk through the forest with Ella. The first 700m was on a wooden boardwalk, so it was very easy to walk with Ella. We were all delighted to be walking around in nature. Second lesson learned: we all prefer being outside exploring to pricey, indoor tourist attractions.
Once the boardwalk ends you need to climb up over rocks and tree roots to get to a stunning waterfall and rock pool. This part is not great for young children, and Andy ended up carrying Ella most of the way. It wasn’t too far and Ella had a great time splashing around in the shallow parts of the river. The waterfall and shallow swimming pool were breathtaking and you could easily spend an afternoon exploring the area. Luckily we had beautiful sunny skies for the walk and the predicted thunderstorms were still nowhere to be seen.
At the start/end of the walk is a café called Harry’s, but we did not get to try it out as it is only open Wednesday - Sunday. On our way back to Peregian Beach Ella fell asleep in the car within minutes, and we had our usual chill out time while she had a couple hours napping back at the Airbnb. When she woke up it had started to cloud over but we took her to the beach across the street from our place for a play before dinner. The beach was deserted and there were dark cloud in the sky, but we managed a good time playing in the sand before feeling the first few drops of rain.
The next morning we woke to sunny skies, and went to Peregian Village for a takeaway breakfast from Skål to eat at the playground. Ella and I shared another smoothie bowl, this time a peanut butter one which was delicious. Andy had the lamb belly bacon and egg roll which was probably one of the best breakfast items I’ve tasted in a long time - the lamb belly bacon was so tender.
After eating we wandered down to the beach to make a very pleasant discovery. Due to the rain the night before there were huge puddles all along the beach. Ella had a fantastic time running and splashing through them. She started fully clothed but was quickly drenched, and we stripped down to her nappy, and then eventually took that off too. I think Ella felt super liberated to be buck naked running around on the beach. It was hilarious. We must have spent like an hour there, and had to drag her away as we had to leave for the airport.
Our drive back to Brisbane airport was uneventful as Ella napped the whole way, exhausted from her morning on the beach. Our last bit of excitement for the holiday was that we had Qantas Club Lounge access - a first for both Andy and I. And what a lovely way to spend time before a flight! There was a small children’s area and the whole atmosphere was so much calmer than the main part of the airport. Not to mention the free food and drink. Ah, how the other half live! It was the perfect way to end our little family beach getaway.
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