In late March, Alexis finished her first term of prep at school. It was time for school holidays and she was ready for her two week break. The beginning of the holidays was celebrated with Easter weekend.
For Easter this year, we visited Werribee Park where the kids participated in a massive Easter egg hunt. It was more of a race to gather as many eggs as you could rather than a hunt, but great fun nonetheless! And the chocolate eggs were delicious, I think the Cadbury chocolate is better here in Australia!
The kids had a good time. They even posed for a picture with the Easter bunny, a first!
In Torquay, Easter weekend is more than just chocolate eggs and Easter bunnies, it is the time of year for the Rip Curl Pro. This surfing competition is world renown and surfers from all over come to compete to be the one to ring the bell. Being a ‘local’, it was important that we made it out to Bells Beach to watch this epic event.
We enjoyed watching some of the most talented surfers around like Kelly Slater, Matt Wilkinson and Jordy Smith, just to name a few. The kids enjoyed watching the surfers but quickly lost interest and played in the tide pools and the sand instead.
During first week of school holidays, we ventured into Melbourne for the day and spent some time at the Melbourne Zoo.
We got up close to the adorable lemurs.
The butterfly house was Alexis’ favourite. She stood very still for a long time, waiting for the butterflies to land on her.
Reid’s favourite was the penguins and the lions.
Mommy’s favourite was eating lunch with the giraffes and the zebras.
Even though Daddy was not with us because he was working, we took a picture of his favourite too…the hippos.
The Keeper Kids area was a highlight for Alexis and Reid. They were able to experience what it might be like to be a zoo keeper, a researcher, a veterinarian and a grounds keeper.
The Melbourne Zoo promotes the conservation of animals and did an excellent job educating us on how we can help fight extinction and care for our environment. We had a great day at the zoo.
On a Sunday afternoon, we drove along the Great Ocean Road to the seaside town of Lorne where the foreshore became a picturesque platform for dozens of sculptures to be admired and explored. The Lorne Sculpture Biennale is an art event consisting of about 100 sculptures lining the foreshore. It is expected that these sculptures will be viewed by 70,000+ people over the 23 days that they are on display.
To finish off the holidays, we spent the night in Melbourne and enjoyed the city on a cool and rainy day.
To escape the rain, we decided to go up the Eureka Skydeck to the 88th floor. Despite the weather, the view was breathtaking and we were able to locate some of Melbourne’s key landmarks through the viewfinders. We were daring enough to walk on ‘The Edge’ which is a glass cube that projects 3 metres out of the building and 300 metres above the ground! Alexis and Reid had no fear, they lay face down on the glass floor and admired the tiny taxis and trams below.