Jan 2023 Part 2: Urban Surf, Cricket, Heide sculptures and more!

It's the third week of February, and the summer holidays feel like a long time ago. We have had a pretty stress free start to the school year, in large part due to the fact that my parents are here. How relaxing our mornings are, with grandparents around to help with school/daycare drop-offs! Not to mention having another person around to help Ella do her hair, a job that can take ages when she wakes up on the wrong side of the bed. (Though I should add that this week she's gone back to doing her own hair, a habit I can only hope continues for the rest of the year.) Similarly, the evenings are much calmer with my parents picking up Ella from school and my mom helping me to prep dinner. Often I arrive home to find everything I need for dinner chopped or measured out ... it's like I'm on my own cooking show! My parents are still here for another three weeks, but I'm already dreading their departure!

Continuing on from my last post, here are a few more highlights from our summer holidays.

Heide Sculpture Park

This free park is located next to the Heide Museum of Modern Art and on the banks of the Yarra river. I have never been to the actual museum (though it's on my list of things to do when I have an afternoon to myself), but taking the kids to the sculpture park was a great activity. There are various sculpture scattered across a vast property, along with gardens and trees to climb, and trails along the river. Ollie wanted us to read out the artists name and date of every piece of art, and has asked when we will go back or to another sculpture park, so I'd say the visit was a success. 

There is also a lovely cafe with a great wine list on the grounds of the park, a great way to start or end your exploration!

Urban Surf

Andy and his friend Heath took Ella and Heath's son Lachie for a surf at Urban Surf, which is a giant wave pool near the airport in Melbourne. It's a pretty cool idea, you can learn to surf in a more controlled, safe environment than the ocean. Andy and Heath spent their hour long session pulling the kids out on surfboards and encouraging them to stand up when they could. Ella loved it, and managed to stand up on her last wave. We need to get her out there again now that her confidence is up with it!

There is a great restaurant at Urban Surf, where my mom, dad and I enjoyed a drink and some lunch while watching the surfing. 

There is also a playground for the kids, which we made use of last weekend when we went back there and Ollie and Georgia (Lachie's sister) joined us. Ollie and Georgia are too young to go in the wave pool (minimum age is 6) but they had fun running around on the sun loungers and at the playground.

The water at Urban Surf is a little chilly, so after the session finished our surfers enjoyed some time in this warm water tub - and then a hot chocolate at the restaurant.

Melbourne Stars Cricket Match

Ollie has developed an obsession with cricket so we all went to a cricket match at the MCG one night. This isn't your regular 5-day long cricket match. The Melbourne Stars are part of the Big Bash league, which consists of 8 teams across Australia. The format follows the Twenty20 format, which is a much shorter style game played in around 2-3 hours. 

Pre-game there were lots of activities set up for kids to practice skills needed for cricket. Not surprisingly, they loved this. I'm not going to lie, this was probably the most exciting part of the night for me. 

The game was at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (or "The G" if you want to sound like a local), which is an impressive sports stadium with a seating capacity of just over 100,000. It's the largest stadium in the southern hemisphere and the second largest cricket stadium in the world. Other than cricket, the G is host to Australian Rules Football (AFL), rugby games, FIFA world cup soccer qualifying matches, and concerts. Also, in 2021 I completed the Melbourne half marathon and the race finishes with a lap around the grounds of the G, which was pretty cool! 

As you can see from the picture, the Big Bash cricket doesn't attract nearly enough fans to fill the stadium, but the larger international matches, such as the Boxing Day Test, do.

There is a lot done to try and make the game exciting for kids, but really there is only so much you can do to spice this game up. I'm sure Australians think the same about baseball. There was music and fire displays, and if a team hits the ball over the boundary line they get 6 runs there are fireworks (this is your home run of cricket). Look, most people there seemed pretty into the game! Cricket is just not for me right now, and I'm selfishly hoping that Ollie's obsession with it dies before I have to spend my weekends watching him play. (Though I'm sure its more exciting if your child is playing!)

Swimming

On a the really hot summer days our go-to activity is going to a community outdoor swimming pool. Our closest one is at Boroondara Sport Centre and we visited quite a few times this summer. It’s a simple set up, with a 50 metre lap pool, a smaller shallow pool (that is fully shaded) for the little ones, and a diving board pool for those more adventurous. Ella jumped off the 1 metre board once this summer for the first time. But apparently the water in the diving pool is quite cold so that was a one time thing for her! 

The best thing about going to Boroondara is that we almost always run in to someone from Ella’s school so she has a playmate. It’s also free for the kids as they do their swimming lessons through the same council, and the lessons include pool entry at any time to any of the local council pools. 

There is lots of grass with shade so you can set up your area, bring a picnic and stay for the day. Or if you’re too lazy to pack a picnic (hello!) they have a little cafè with some basics like cheese toasties, fries, sausage rolls, hot and cold drinks and of course a selection of icey poles and ice creams.

This is the only picture I could find from that pool… Ella is beginning her influencer career here… 

(We found those boots in our local op shop for $6 and she loooooves them. What a deal!)

We ventured further afield a few times, to Oak Park Aquatic centre, which has some water slides and a great kids splash/play area. It gets very busy here though, so we’ve realized you have to get there really early on a hot day or you end up having to wait in line. It was fun for a change of scenery, and also really reasonably priced as it’s also a community centre pool. 

And that wraps up our summer highlights! It was a fantastic summer spent with my parents, one we will look back on fondly for a long time.