ANZAC Day Long Weekend

Posted by Wendy McCarry May 11, 2025

ANZAC Day Long Weekend

This year, ANZAC Day (25 April) fell on a Friday, immediately after Easter, giving us a three-day week to ease back into Term 2. Unfortunately, the weather on ANZAC Day was pretty miserable here on the Gold Coast—it poured until about 3 pm. There are dawn services across the country every ANZAC Day to commemorate those who have served in the armed forces for Australia (and New Zealand), and some of those had to be cancelled here due to the rain, which is a shame. ANZAC Day is a similar day to Remembrance Day, except it is specific to Australia and New Zealand and was started to remember the Army Corps landing at Gallipoli in Turkey on 25 April, 1915, during WWI.

Most places are closed on ANZAC Day, though in Melbourne things like grocery stores would open around 1pm, once the morning services were finished. We were caught off guard in finding out that in Queensland these places are shut all day, so we didn't have much food in the house. We were all quite unmotivated that day. Between the rain, the closures, and Andy nursing a shoulder ligament he’d pulled earlier in the week, we spent most of the day lazing around, doing very little.

Once the rain cleared up we decided we needed some fresh air. We drove down to Main Beach to go for a walk by the sea. The beach there is still closed but we could still walk along the path. I think everyone was happy to be outside; the kids didn't moan nearly as much as they usually do about being out for a walk!

With dinner options limited, we ended up at a nearby pub in Southport. It wasn’t a gourmet feast, but we managed to eat outside and finished just before another downpour hit.

The next morning we were all relieved to wake up to blue skies and warm weather. We headed out to a new playground in Robina to meet Andy, Jo and the twins. We hardly ever take the kids to playgrounds anymore. I do miss that about our old place in Melbourne, as we were within walking distance of two very excellent playgrounds. The playgrounds within walking distance to our new house are quite sad, frankly, and so we hardly ever go to them. We have this idea, I think, that the kids have outgrown playgrounds, but they really haven't. They both still absolutely love them, so we need to keep that in mind when we are thinking about what to do on the weekends - the humble playground is still a hit (and free!) so we should take advantage of this before they actually do outgrow them!

Robina is about a 15-20 minute drive from our house, but this playground was worth the drive. First of all, it was fully fenced in, which is great as the kids are old enough to go off on their own and you don't have to worry that they've wandered too far. There was heaps for the kids to do, and the equipment catered for all ages. In addition to the main playground area, there is also big bike track, a ninja warrior park section, and plenty of grassy fields for ball games and picnics. There was a coffee stand as well - so that's always a bonus.

We spent a good couple of hours here before heading to George's Paragon, a pizza and wine bar in Sanctuary Cove that Andy & Jo were familiar with from when they lived in that area. This place has the most amazing happy hour I've ever heard of: every day from 12-5pm all drinks are half price! I absolutely loved this place, and not just because of the cheap drinks (though that was definitely a bonus). I loved the casual vibe, the view of the marina at Sanctuary Cove was divine, and the pizzas were delicious. We will absolutely be back here sometime in the near future!

On Sunday morning we took the kids to a Junior Parkrun event, conveniently located 5 minutes from our house. Andy and I used to do Parkrun, a free timed 5km run, both in London and a few times when we were living in Canada. I love that it is a world wide event and that your results are tracked for you no matter where in the world you are.

I was pretty impressed with the turnout for this event. We learned later that there were 118 runners that morning, all aged 4-14 years old. The kids did well considering they don't run regularly. Ollie managed to keep up a light jog the entire 2km, while Ella stayed close by him, preferring a sprint/walk strategy. Ella finished slightly ahead of Ollie - in a somewhat cruel big sister move, she stayed behind him nearly the whole run and then sprinted ahead at the finish - but both did it in under 12 minutes which was not bad! We'd had a lot of rain in the week before so the ground was pretty wet - both kids were covered in mud splats up the back of their bodies by the end! We had thought we might go out for brunch after, but opted for some takeaway instead due to the muddy kids.

Back at home the weather was warming up so I decided to take the kids for one last day at White Water World, before it closed for the season. We arrived there just after midday so it was already pretty busy, and I realised right away that Ollie was hangry. So we spent a good 30-45 minutes eating lunch there first, which was fine, as it meant that then we were all in a good mood and ready for an afternoon at a water park.

Ollie isn't very adventurous when it comes to theme park rides (yet!) while Ella is the opposite, so sometimes it's hard to take them both without another adult. Ollie refuses to go on any waterslides, while Ella is desperate to. We ended up spending a lot of time in the wave pool together which was pretty fun anyway. After a couple of hours Ollie decided he was done for a the day, so Ella and I went on a waterslide with a short line together while he chilled out on a lounge chair. I asked Ella to take some photos of her and Ollie in some giant flips flops that I thought would be nice for the blog, but all I got was a ton of photos that look like this:

I should have been more specific with my photo directions!

Earlier that afternoon I'd texted Andy (friend, not husband!) to see if he had brought the twins to White Water World. They live 5 minutes from the theme parks, and he had mentioned he might take them there when we were with them the previous day. He hadn't, but said we could stop by theirs for a play on our way home, so that's what we did! It was a really lovely way to end the long weekend, as the kids played together in their back garden while I chatted with Andy and Jo and had a cheeky Sunday night wine. We even ended up staying for some dinner which meant I didn't have to worry about that when we got home, which is always a win. It's always so nice and easy hanging out with Andy and Jo - we've known them a long time compared to most people in Australia, especially now that we've moved to the Gold Coast - so it's always nice to just be able to relax and be yourself around old friends.