We went in July 2011 and while the locals thought it was too cold to swim, we had no problem taking the plunge — especially given the gorgeous swimming and snorkelling opportunities on offer.

We stayed at Arcadia on the southeast coast, across the road from toddler friendly Geoffrey Bay and a short walk from the good swimming beach of Alma Bay. Having visited the other settlements on the island, Arcadia is where I would choose to stay again for its proximity to what were, for me, some of the islands main attractions.

Alma Bay is a patrolled beach and there’s a kids playground with shady lawn and amenities that fronts on to the sand.

Low tide at Geoffrey Bay is perfect for beach-combing, the kids chasing hermit crabs and paddling around in the shallow water. This is an ideal beach for building sandcastles and decorating them with shells, coral and seaweed, all of which are in ample supply.

At the northern end of Geoffrey Bay a dirt road curves around the water to Bremner Point. The road is lined with the volcanic boulders that characterise Magnetic Island’s dramatic landscape, and at sunset rock wallabies come down from the cliffs, balancing on the boulders with the dexterity of circus performers. They gather in the carpark where people feed with specially purchased pellets or certain types of fruit and vegetables (outlined on a sign). However, it’s not necessary to feed the rock wallabies to get close and the photo opportunities are amazing. Look out for joeys in the pouches and keep clear of the boxing males.

Magnetic Island is rich in native wildlife. If the clamour of the curlews doesn’t wake you in the wee hours of the morning, chances are the kookaburras will; there’s a blue-winged variety unique to this region. Just around from where we were staying was a flying fox colony, while a sea eagle welcomed us when our ferry from Townsville pulled into the jetty at Nelly Bay.

The flora and fauna on land is rivalled only by that in the sea. Snorkelling off Magnetic Island, it’s easy to remember that you are not far from the Great Barrier Reef. We snorkelled at a few places, but by far the best was Arthur Bay, north of Alma Bay. Accessible only by 4WD down an unsealed track, Arthur Bay has shade, sand, fabulous rock formations, and — at the northern end — splendid coral reefs teeming with tropical fish. If you get the tide times right, you can walk out and snorkelling only centimetres from the coral. We spent several mornings at Arthur Bay, the highlight of which was swimming with a sea turtle in the coral garden.

Tropical Cyclone Yasi, which hit northern Queensland in January 2011, had taken it’s toll on sea turtles in the area — or at least the sea grass meadows they rely on for food. Injured and hungry turtles often end up on the nursery at the ReefHQ Aquarium in Townsville, which we visited on a day trip to the mainland. We timed our visit to catch the daily Predator Dive Show where, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, we got hear the diver chat as he swam with sharks and other animals in a tank full of predators. We got introduced to aquarium long-timers Leo and Leonie, a mating pair of leopard sharks, and sentimental favourite Cuddles the tawny nurse shark, resident since 1996, who spent his days snoozing, harvesting food from under rocks when he could be bothered. We learned that blacktip reef sharks never stop swimming, and the long blade-like nose of a sawfish is called a rostrum. The woman who interviewed the diver in the tank also handed around stuff for us to touch: a small shark jawbone and teeth, egg sacs and a sawfish rostrum. A great show.

Our visit coincided with the school holiday program at the aquarium. Indigenous project officer Russell Butler, whose background is the Bandjin people of Hinchinbrook, was demonstrating traditional skills, and there was a range of craft activities on offer linked to traditional Aboriginal stories from the region. Our favourite was ‘The two boys and the Dhui Dhui’ best, the story of how the Southern Cross got into the sky. As well as a model Dhui Dhui — shovel-nosed stingray — to cut out and colour, we got a print out of the story and a visual map, complete with legend to help us read the symbols.

The other highlight of our day-trip to Townsville was the Strand Water Park on the foreshore. Not much beats watching kids so excited, they can’t stop jumping for joy.

While it might not rival ReefHQ Aquarium, the Aquasearch Lab and Aquarium at 6-10 Elena St in Nelly Bay is worth a visit. Set up outside the home of Rick and Nell Braley, the quirky,  compact display includes tanks of colourful corals, anemones, tropical fish — crowd pleasers like clown fish, moon wrasse, damsel fish, blue tang — and a 25+ year old cultured Giant Clam, cultivated as part of Dr Rick’s PhD research.

Speaking of culture, don’t miss the weekly Cane Toad races at the Arcadia Pub, held on Wednesdays though rescheduled to Friday during our visit on account of some rugby match. The races are hosted by ‘Island icon’ and colourful racing personality Verne Jack, who is also responsible for the wallaby feeding. Wearing shorts, a T-shirt and one white sock on the night we attended, Verne hoists the toads from a plastic garbage bin one at a time, each wearing a different coloured ribbon, and introduces them: orange is ‘The Flying Ductchman’, green is ‘Irish’, pink is the ‘Pink Pussycat’, etc. Verne auctions them off one at a time to the highest bidders — someone paid $80 for a toad the night we were there — then places them in an octagonal perspex pen at the centre of a large painted circle. When Verne lifts the box away, the cane toads — which look even uglier for wearing ribbons — ‘race’ to the edge of the circle. First one over the line wins…unless it doubles back, in which case the next one wins. The winner gets a cash prize, with profits going to junior lifesaving. Awesome.

Another island event worth mentioning is the open air food market at the RSL Hall, 31 Hayles Ave, Arcadia, with Thai and Indonesian foodstalls, a full bar inside the hall, and a fabulous range of home-cooked cakes and preserves. Open from 5-8pm on Fridays, come early to get a table or bring a picnic rug.

Update

The Coral Sea area around Magnetic Island is an extraordinary, pristine marine environment. To add your voice to the campaign to keep it that way, go to the Protect Our Coral Sea website. It takes less than a minute to make a submission to the Federal Environment Minister, and while you’re there, you can check out the superb photos and videos.

We spent a full day of the Easter weekend at Singapore Zoo and barely covered half the exhibits. The zoo is laid out on 28 hectares of superb grounds and almost completely surrounded by water. Much of the paths are shaded by trees and the plant life is astounding. Touted as the ‘World’s Best Rainforest Zoo’, the zoo’s ‘open concept’ design means there are few visual obstacles between visitors and the wildlife, despite the often spacious enclosures.

An example is the free-ranging orang utan habitat, a wonder of design where from a series of cleverly designed boardwalks, you can view the orang utans overhead and often at eye level, lounging around, climbing trees, swinging along ropes, playing and in our case, settling in for a snack on some foraged food. This was one of my favourite exhibits.

My other favourite was the Fragile Forest, a walk-through dome (the world’s largest) containing not only butterflies, but two different types of lemurs, flying foxes, crested pigeons, Eclectus parrots, whistling ducks, freshwater stingrays, and other creatures I couldn’t name. I think I was probably more excited than Tash by my close encounter with a lemur.

Also worth mentioning is the Great Rift Valley of Ethiopia exhibit, which houses a large tribe of red-bottomed Hamadryas baboons, mountain climbing nubian ibexes with horns like scimitars, and saddle billed storks. Baboons are always fun to watch — though the Proboscis Monkeys give them a run for their money in terms of amusement value.

For Natasha, the day’s highlights had less to do with the exotic animal exhibits and more to do with ‘Rainforest Kidzworld’, a park within the zoo. Tash ran in ahead of me, then came running back with her hands in the air saying, ‘Mum, it’s fantastic!’

There is a spectacular ‘wet play’ area — we’d come prepared with bathers and a towel — with pools, fountains, waterslides, showers, and a giant bucket that filled up every five minutes. When the bucket was ready to be emptied, a bell would ring and all the kids assemble in front of the main play station to let themselves be doused by the downpour. Tash was literally jumping for joy.

The other highlight of Kidzworld for her was going on her first ever pony ride. Princesses ride ponies. Enough said.

I know some think zoos are inherently bad and that animals shouldn’t be in them. While I firmly believe we must make every effort to conserve natural environments so that animals can thrive in the wild, I believe zoos can help raise awareness of the need for conservation and also build an emotional commitment by inspiring people of all ages with awe at the wonders of nature. Brimming with educational displays and beautifully designed, Singapore Zoo delivers on this front.

And kudos to a souvenir shop that sells kids undies alongside a place where existing undies can easily go missing or get wet!

Singapore Zoo is accessible on public transport via Singapore’s brilliant MRT train system, followed by a bus that connects with the station. The train fares cost us SGD$8.10 (AUD$6) each way, the bus SGD$4.10 (and a curse on you if you don’t have the correct change for the bus driver). Zoo entrance fees are SGD$20 for adults (AUD$15) and SGD$13 for children (AUD$9.70). We paid extra for unlimited tram rides but didn’t end up travelling by tram at all. Some 90% of the park is wheelchair accessible and facilities exist for people with disabilities. Tips on enjoying the zoo are here.

And what better way to finish up a great day than with dinner at The Jungle Tandoor, 102 Serangoon Road, Serangoon (Little India), where faux rainforest decor meets delicious North Indian cuisine.

Next year it won’t be the morning after my brother’s 40th birthday celebration and we’ll make a proper of a day of it. This time around, we managed a couple of ‘Experimedia’ Children’s Workshops in the State Library of Victoria. This included a talk by illustrator Bob Graham, whose book Jethro Byrd, Fairy Child is one Tash enjoys. I was inspired by the fact that Bob didn’t start writing and illustrating children’s books until he was 40 (I was 3 months shy of my 40th when my own first book was published), and he’s gone on to win multiple awards and build an international following — not that you’d know it from his humble presentation.

We had actually gone to the Experimedia space to see Leigh Hobbs, writer/illustrator of the Horrible Harriet, Old Tom, Fiona the Pig and Mister Chicken, books beloved by all our family. By the time I worked out that there were simultaneous sessions going on, Leigh had already run a session for the kids on how to draw Old Tom. However, Tash managed to sit in on a lesson in how to draw Mister Chicken — and did a pretty good job of it if I do say so [at the risk of sounding like a doting mother] myself.

Following the workshops was a screening of Shaun Tan’s Oscar winning short animation, The Lost Thing — another great reason to attend the Children’s Book Festival when we did. The film was stunning and it was a real treat to see it on a big screen in a public space — me, Roo and Tash, all sprawled on the same beanbag. All three of us loved it.

We headed outside after this to the lawns of the State Library where Coco’s Lunch were performing. We watched and listened while queuing up for the free petting zoo, which in an homage to the Mem Fox/Judy Horacek classic contained a green sheep among its residents, plus a green-faced piglet that had obviously been butting heads with the green sheep. Tash’s favourites were a sweet little kid and a soft white duck.

We would have stayed longer if not for the party the night before, as we didn’t get to the Kids’ Own Publishing Book Cubby — which looked great — nor to any of the book signings or exhibitions. But as I said, I’m hopeful today augurs in the Children’s Book Festival as an annual event.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should note that my partner Andrew Nette currently holds a Wheeler Centre Fellowship.

This post also appears on my author blog.

A case in point: while I was excited by the hippos (left), Tash was more excited by the Hippo Play Trail and way more excited by the Hippo Water Play (above). In truth the statue versions with their inviting climbs and tricky fountains were considerably more animated than the real thing. Note the fountains come on once the thermostat hits 23 degrees.

While I think the Scimitar Oryx are exquisite and amazing, especially given they are endangered and ‘conservation dependant’, Tash found the packaging they came in (below) — from the Monarto Zoo in South Australia — way more interesting. And after ten minutes of crawling in and out of packing crates, I had to concede she had a point. The animal packaging playground at the end of the Pula Reserve Trail is inspired.

Differences aside, both Tash and I were very excited to see four-week old zebra foal Shamwari (below) during our Safari bus tour, while Roo enjoyed getting up close and personal with the giraffe herd.

When we asked Tash about her favourite part of the day, she nominated the icy-pole in the Meerkat Bistro. Sometimes Roo and I wonder why we try so hard…

But all three of us were united in our happiness on the way home to visit the Ðòng Quê restaurant for a late lunch of Hanoi style grilled pork with vermicelli noodles, Vietnamese coleslaw with shrimp and pork, and steamed rice paper with grilled pork and rice crackers. Our favourite eatery in Footscray, Ðòng Quê can be found at 102 Hopkins Street.

The day was a salient reminder to recalibrate expectations when travelling with a child, which is timely, given we are heading back to Thailand in less than a month. We’ll be spending the school holidays on what will be a research trip for me, visiting the parts of Thailand where my next book will be set.

Who knows what delights Tash may open my eyes to.

All these creatures and more can be admired up close at the Melbourne Aquarium, where we spent several hours this afternoon. The first exhibit inside the door is the penguin enclosure, where King and Gentoo penguins stand around in huddles on the ice like guests at a winter wedding who’ve stepped outside for a smoke. They are more animated in the water and if you step around to the right side of the tank, chances are you’ll have the view — and the photo opportunities — to yourself.

Retrace your steps to go through to the Ice Station display and the Weird and Wonderful exhibits featuring the aforementioned lion fish, giant cuttlefish and weedy sea dragons, as well as the gruesome and highly toxic stone fish, moray eels and long-necked turtles. The weedy sea dragons had babies earlier this month and the dear little things, looking like sprigs of seaweed, are worth checking out.

The next area is called From River to Reef and include exhibits where kids (and game adults) can crawl under the tanks and get a close look at freshwater rays, sucker fish and eels through perspex bubbles. There are touchable exhibits, too, of sharks’ egg sacs, sea stars and sponges in the rock pools sections, where a staff member is available to answer questions about the different animals. See for yourself how sea stars grow a new limb when they lose one. There are also large hermit crabs and gorgeous coloured anemones to be seen in the rock pools.

In the nearby lagoon are barramundi, freshwater sharks and one of my favourite of the creatures we saw today, the Freshwater Sawfish, its long serrated blade of a nose like small chainsaw. It looks bizarre, almost mythical, but is actually quite gentle, a member of the ray family, the saw is used for digging rather than combat.

We hightailed it to the Oceanarium a.k.a Sharks Alive to attend the 2pm Dive Feed. It’s a great spectacle watching the divers get sandwiched against the glass of the 2.2 million litre tank by the giant Smooth Stingrays angling for some fish. The Oceanarium is currently housing a couple of sea turtles until they are fit enough to be released back into the wild, and they were giving the rays a run for their money on the feeding frenzy.

As the divers surfaced, we doubled back to the Coral Atoll exhibit to see the beautiful corals and pretty fish including the Regal Blue Tang (that’d be ‘Dory’ to you Finding Nemo fans) and bright yellow Butterfly Fish. The Coral Atoll also houses a cheeky spotted Eagle Ray that seemed as keen to get a good look at Tash as she was to look at it.

In the Sea Jellies exhibit, the room is dark and the tanks are UV-lit, adding to the hypnotic effect of watching these graceful creatures in action.

The other place to sit and stare is the Ocean Theatre on the far side of the Oceanarium before the kids play area. I recommend heading their before your kid runs out of steam as it’s the perfect spot to gaze on sharks — including a Scalloped Hammerhead — rays and giant snapper.

The Melbourne Aquarium is not a cheap date at $33.50/adult and $19/child. But there are family discounts and other specials worth looking out for. The free Melbourne guide found in the City Circle tram has a 20% discount coupon, and we got something in the mail recently that entitled us to one free ticket of equal or lesser value, saving us the price of an adult ticket today. It’s worth checking publications that target tourists to see what you can find.

It beats watching re-runs of Finding Nemo.

It was thanks to the former that we ended up at the latter. Andrew is a former Melbourne Zoo keeper, author, photographer, community educator and government licensed Commercial Wildlife Demonstrator. His Australian Wildlife Lecturers appears annually at the Altona Library courtesy of the Hobson’s Bay Council. I saw it advertised in the paper, and we headed there today for an amazing ‘hands-on’ learning experience.

Andrew brings live snakes, lizards, stick insects, a tortoise and tree frogs, all of which can be handled — under careful supervision — by kids and adults alike. In fact, the adults outnumbered the kids most of the time we were at the library. As you handle the animals, Andrew passes on interesting information about them. I learned that frogs breath and absorb water through their skin, for example, and that some lizards — like the blue-tongue — have live births while others lay eggs. Also very few tortoises can turn themselves over if they are knocked on to their backs/shells, the long-necked tortoise in Andrew’s care being an exception.

There are live spiders in containers and other beasties in tanks, all clearly labelled and accompanied by fact sheets. Here I learned that white-tailed spider bites, while painful, are not life-threatening. Phew!

There are other minibeasts preserved in formaldehyde or behind glass, including a baby shark and a small blue-ringed octopus. The library has an impressive display of stuffed animals and shells, while I think others belonged to Andrew. It was a treat to see the delighted look on my nine-month-old nephew’s face when his hand made contact with possum fur.

Tash was a little disappointed there was no redback handling, also that she wasn’t allowed to kiss the green tree frog and turn him into a prince. But the photos show how much we all enjoyed the experience.

As well as being learned and informative, Andrew is entertaining and patient. He set up photos for us, producing a great record of a wonderful experience. He doesn’t do parties — too much like babysitting — and he warns against dodgy snake wranglers posing as kids entertainers. But he’s available for school incursions and excursions covering a range of wildlife issues, including beach walks and rockpool rambles. Highly recommended.

Kudos to the Hobson’s Bay Council for providing such a wonderful, free school holiday event, and to the Altona Library for being so hospitable. It was great to see a group of older persons and carers enjoying the same experience as the four-, five-, fifteen- and forty-something-year-olds in our party.

Altona Library is located a convenient two blocks from Altona Station on the corner of Sargood and Queen Streets. Another block south on Sargood Street is the RJ Logan Reserve, a shady park with a kids playground, which overlooks Altona Beach. Alongside the park on Pier Street is the Altona Pines Takeaway, which sells seriously good fish and chips. The nearby Pier Cafe next door has good coffee. In terms of urban planning, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Our band of four little kids, one teen and two hot mamas enjoyed fish and chips at a table in the shade right by the playground with a view of the beach. The air was filled with dragon flies and the Morton Bay Fig Tree begged the kids to come back again when they were big enough to climb it.

We’ll be back.

Full set of pics here.

When my brother, a lecturer in cinema studies, visited us from the UK last year, Tash sidled up to him and asked, ‘Uncle Julian, what’s your favourite kids movie?’

‘Funny you should ask,’ he said. ‘I was just thinking about that the other day. It’s a film called Bugsy Malone.’

The 1976 Alan Parker film starring Jodie Foster and Scott Baio features kiddie gangsters armed with guns that fire cream pies. But Tash wasn’t satisfied.

‘Uncle Julian,’ she tried again, ‘what’s your favourite princess movie?’

To my surprise, he had one: The Princess Bride.

And so to the following princess movies adults can stand.

The Princess Bride

The Princess Bride (1987, PG), directed by Rob Reiner of Spinal Tap fame and based on a novel by William Goldman, opens with a grandfather (Peter Falk) reading a book to his sick grandson (Fred Savage). The boy is unenthusiastic, but gives the grandfather the benefit of the doubt on learning the story has “fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles…” And it delivers on every front.

While Princess Buttercup (Robin Wright in her debut role) could be more helpful when under attack, she looks gorgeous and sustains the drama while all those around her — Cary Elwes as Westley/the Dread Pirate Robins, Chris Sarandon as the evil Prince Umperdinck, Billy Chrystal as Miracle Max — ham it up. The other note of pathos comes from the underrated Mandy Patinkin as Inigo Montoya, hell bent on avenging the death of his father by the sword of the six-fingered man (Spinal Tap’s Christopher Guest as Count Rugen).

A film with appeal for girls and boys, from toddlers to teens, though the younger ones might need their hands held during the scarier scenes. Those Rodents of Unusual Size sure scare the hell out of me.

Enchanted

Enchanted (2007, PG) begins as a classic Disney animation. Lovely Giselle (Amy Adams), surrounded by her friends the forest creatures, pines for a prince and “true love’s kiss”. Enter the perfect candidate, Prince Edward (James Marsden), distracted from his troll hunting by Giselle’s lovely singing. They fall in love but before they can go through with the wedding, Giselle falls foul of Edward’s evil step-mother Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon, having loads of fun), who sends her to “a place where there are no happy ever afters”.

Giselle emerges in modern-day New York and the film segues into live-action. Neither her arrival, nor the subsequent arrivals of Edward, his valet Nathaniel (Timothy Spall) and Pip the chipmunk seem to phase the locals, though a bus driver does get irate when Edward stabs her bus and announces, “The steel beast is dead, peasants. I’ve set you all free!”

Meanwhile, Giselle is rescued by and falls for divorce lawyer Robert Philip (Patrick Dempsey), who scoffs at her romanticism but falls for her, too — to the delight of his daughter Morgan (Rachel Covey) and displeasure of his girlfriend Nancy (Idina Menzel).

Enchanted works because it is not cynical, celebrating the same fairytale qualities that it parodies. In one hilarious scene, Giselle summons friendly creatures to help her clean up the apartment where Robert and Morgan live, just as Cinderella summoned the rabbits, fauns and bluebirds to help her tidy the home of the seven dwarves. But because it’s New York City, Giselle gets pigeons, rats and cockroaches to do the job as she sings her “Happy Working Song.”

With its cross-cultural blunders, jokes and big musical numbers, Enchanted is great fun, and with the exception of one “spiteful, vindictive, very large” dragon, not too scary.

Ella Enchanted

Based on the novel by Gail Carson Levine, Ella Enchanted (2004, PG) is another live action film that subverts typical fairytale plots and devices while remaining faithful to the qualities of the genre. Ella (the lively and lovely Anne Hathaway) is given the ‘gift’ of obedience by an irresponsible Fairy Godmother, Lucinda (Vivica A Fox), which requires her to do whatever she’s told, regardless of the personal consequences. A throwaway line like ‘you wait here’ fixes her to the spot, even if that’s in the path of a speeding coach. Ella struggles to keep her curse a secret from her awful stepmother (Joanna Lumley) and stepsisters, knowing they would use it to exploit her.

Meanwhile, the kingdom of Lamia is under the rule of the evil Sir Edgar, played in a nice twist by The Princess Bride‘s romantic hero Cary Elwes, who is plotting to keep the crown from his naive nephew, handsome prince Charmont (Hugh Dancy). When Char turns up at a public event, Ella and a friend’s protest against ‘ogrecide’ draws his attention. Ella ends up taking him to see what Edgar has done to the kingdom, driving out the ogres, enslaving the giants and forcing the elves to work as entertainers. They befriend an array of creatures, including Slannen the Elf (Aidan McArdle), who hates singing, dancing and ‘tomfoolery’ and wants to be a lawyer. Slannen ends up being wooed by the giantess Brumhilda (Heidi Klum).

All the while Ella is trying to find Lucinda in order to ask her to take back her gift. But Sir Edgar with the help of the evil stepsisters has discovered Ella’s secret and so that he can retain the crown, lines Ella up to assassinate Prince Char.

The satisfying twist on the typical fairytale in Ella Enchanted is that while your typical fairytale princess is dependent and submissive, Ella’s recognises these qualities as a curse. She must rely on her resourcefulness and strength of character if she is to bring about a happy ending.

Stardust

Stardust (2007, PG) opens with a young man breaching the wall between an English village and the magical kingdom of Stormhold, where he meets a princess held captive by a witch. They have a brief romance and a year later their son Tristan turns up in a basket on his doorstep. Fast forward 18 years and Tristan Thorn (Charlie Cox) follows unknowingly in his father’s the wall, hoping to retrieve a fallen star to impress his obnoxious girlfriend Victoria (Sienna Miller).

The star turns out to be a beautiful young woman, Yvaine (Claire Danes), who is outraged by Tristan’s plans to make a gift of her to Victoria. “But of course!” she scoffs. “Nothing says “romance” like the gift of a kidnapped injured woman!”

Also hot on the heels of the star is the evil witch Lamia — played with delight by Michelle Pfeiffer — who wants to cut out the star’s heart to restore hers and her sisters’ youth and beauty.

Meanwhile, the succession of Stormhold is in dispute as the dying king’s seven sons keep killing each other off in order to win the throne. The last two standing, Primus (Jason Flemyng) and Septimus (the fabulous Mark Strong), are hunting the king’s ruby necklace, watched over by the ghosts of the brothers they have assassinated before them.

There’s also a subplot involving a shipload of thunder hunting pirates, with a cross-dressing captain played by Robert de Niro, whose performance alone is worth watching the film for.

All the narrative threads come together, but the complexity of the plot meant Tash had a lot of questions the first time we watched it. And there are some scary bits: a witch is beheaded, another run through with a lance, and then there’s all those dead princes. But it’s a wonderful, magical epic with great performances, gorgeous production values and a happy ending.

Shrek

The last of the princess movies adults can stand is perhaps an obvious choice since the Shrek movies can appear to have been made with adults rather than, or at least as much as kids in mind.

But I’m including the first Shrek (2001, PG) here because it’s a great antidote to those other Disney princess movies. ‘True love’s kiss’ doesn’t transform the ogre Princess Fiona (voiced by Cameron Diaz) into the pretty Princess Fiona, but demonstrates that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that Fiona is gorgeous, regardless of how she looks.

That true love takes many forms is demonstrated not only by the relationship between cantankerous ogre Shrek (Mike Myers) and the feisty Fiona, but by the fiery (pun intended) romance between the hilarious Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and the giant girl dragon that guards Fiona in her tower.

There are also lots of fart jokes, puns, riffs on well-known fairytales and singalong opportunities for the whole family to enjoy.

But if despite these recommendations, your own little princess reaches for the animated Disney options, try steering her towards The Princess and the Frog (2009, G) or Mulan (1998, G) — to my mind, the most bearable of the bunch.

No prizes for guessing where we’ll be in the second week of January 2011…

The jealous lioness is transformed into a magnetic jigsaw puzzle in Das Puzzle Haus, a play space featuring works from the exhibition, which Tash loved. If I have any complaints it’s that the puzzle house should have been placed at the end rather than outside the entrance as the actual exhibition paled by comparison for Natasha. In fact, the position of the Puzzle House in the main foyer of the gallery means access is free.

Once inside the exhibition itself ($23/adult, kids under 5 free), there is a trail for kids called Städel Kids: Alphabet labels where children identify alphabet wall labels dispersed through the exhibition and circle the letters on a piece of paper. This proved too much for Natasha, whose letter recognition doesn’t extend much beyond her own name. But the questions attached to the alphabet labels were a great way to engage her in the art works.

The works of Der Blaue Reiter artists Franz Marc and August Macke were amongst those Natasha liked best — Dog lying in the snow and Walter’s toys respectively — and these were also images transformed into jigsaws in the Puzzle House. Funnily enough, I was a big fan of The Blue Rider school in my own youth: I copied a detail from a Macke painting in a year 11 art class and kept it for years, I liked the image and colours so much.

Tash also liked the works featuring children — of which there are many — and ballerinas, notably the wonderful Orchestra musicians by Edgar Degas.

After the exhibition, we headed to the sculpture garden for a picnic lunch and to give Tash the chance to climb on some art (gotta love that). Plus a visit to the National Gallery of Victoria wouldn’t be complete without lying on the floor of the Great Hall to gaze at the stained-glass ceiling. It would be like passing through the entrance without putting your hand on the Water Wall — just not done.

When I asked Tash about her favourite thing at the gallery today, she said ‘The fairy puzzle’, a reference to a block jigsaw based on the painting Elf dance in a grove of alders by Moritz von Schwind. ‘And,’ she added, ‘the lion, the dog and the toys.’ Again, these were all works from the exhibition transformed into different kinds of puzzles in Daz puzzle haus.

It’s a brilliant way to get kids involved in studying art and if I can get my act together, I plan to purchase or make some artwork puzzles of my own for Tash.

The European Masters exhibition is open from 10am until 9pm from tomorrow until Friday, until midnight on Saturday and until 6pm this Sunday 10 October. In addition to the free Puzzle House and the alphabet trail for kids, there are still a couple of special kids art activities this weekend.

I conferred with the parents of one of Tash’s closest friends, who it turns out was also lobbying hard for a snow trip. Perhaps they hatched the idea at the kindergarten they both attend. Whatever the case, we decided collectively to take the kids to the snow.

Next we had to figure out where, when, and for how long. Friends recommended staying at an alpine resort so warm baths and a change of clothes were close at hand for the kids. But the costs were prohibitive. An alternative was to stay in a nearby town and make trips to and from the snowfields. But the most affordable options required hours of driving. And what if the kids liked the idea of snow better than the reality? There was a strong possibility they’d be into it for half an hour, then complain they were cold and wet and wanted to go home.

After much research we settled on the modest objective of a day trip to Lake Mountain near Marysville. Of all of Victoria’s snowfields, Lake Mountain is closest to Melbourne at 120 km northeast of the CBD or a little over two hours’ drive for us. We figured August was a good bet in terms of snowfall, though there’s a snowmaking machine to get it through the lean seasons.

The area was badly damaged by the February 2009 Black Saturday bushfires. Given the cold, it should have been impossible to imagine the hillsides on fire. But whiteness of the snow served to intensify the charred and blackened bush. Eighteen months on, the impact of the devastation still takes my breath away.

Marysville was where we chose to stop and hire snow gear. There are at least three hire places on the main road and it’s worth shopping around for deals. We got a ‘Snowman Package’ at Marysville Ski Centre, which provided walking boots, waterproof overpants and a toboggan for $21 per person (adults & children); another place had the same deal for kids at $16. I’d found Tash a perfect parka for $6 and overpants for $3 at Savers in Brunswick, but we forked out for mittens ($12 to buy) and boots ($10 to hire) for her — and thank goodness we did. Entry to the mountain itself is $35 per car (weekend rate, $25 weekdays), best paid by cash using the correct change.

It was sheer luck that the weather was perfect, the sky clear and blue, the mountainsides soft with freshly fallen snow. It also meant Lake Mountain was crowded, the upper carpark already full by the time we arrived at 11 am. A shuttle-bus was ferrying people to the resort, but on the suggestion of a park volunteer, we headed through the gate near the entrance to the lower carpark, turned right and walked a short distance to a small toboggan run.

This turned out to be a good move. The gentle slope was perfect for our four-and-a-half-year-olds and it was possible to walk into the bush only metres from the toboggan run and feel as if we had the place to ourselves. There were a few other families around but not enough to make it feel crowded.

Tash’s friend got cold feet (literally) after an hour, but Tash loved it. To begin with, Andrew and I took turns on the toboggan with her, but after a couple of hours and a few practice sessions on a smaller slope, she was tobogganing on her own. She could get enough of the ‘boggan’. She also made a snow angel, helped build a snowman, had a snowball fight — all the things she’d planned for weeks. The photos capture her pure joy at the experience.

A day at the snow is not cheap. Happily in our case, it was well worth it.

The Lake Mountain Alpine Resort website provides detailed information including daily snow reports and maps. Click here for tourist information on Marysville.

All the same, she lasted an hour and a half at the fantastic exhibit put together by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne, finding enough to intrigue and beguile her without being too scary.

In fact, when we asked afterwards about her favourite part of the exhibition, she nominated a clip from The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) in which a skeletal Santa distributes evil toys that terrorise the neighbourhood. She watched the same clip about four times. Go figure.

Tash also enjoyed hanging out in the Activity Space, drawing pictures of princesses that turned out eerily like the Corpse Bride. For me seeing some of the public art inspired by the exhibition was almost as good as the exhibition itself.

My undisputed highlight was the six-minute, stop animation film Vincent, which Burton made in 1982 as a tribute to Vincent Price, whom he convinced to narrate the film. Vincent Price’s autograph is on display amidst Burton’s notes and sketches for this wonderful short film.

I also loved what appears on the exhibition map as the ‘Burtonarium’, a carnivalesque tunnel covered in day-glo images of creatures, which leads to a wacky merry-go-round of monsters and electric lights, accompanied by haunting music.

I suspect I’m not alone in planning a big retrospective viewing of Burton’s films as a result of seeing this exhibition. I was reminded of how much I enjoyed Ed Wood, for example, and how long it was since I’d seen Edward Scissorhands. And clearly Tash and I need to see The Nightmare Before Christmas in its entirety.

But there was so much to see, and much as I loved seeing it with Natasha, I plan to go back for a second visit to the exhibition sans child. I want to linger over Burton’s sketches, notes and paintings — not the sort of exhibits to keep a child entertained — and take a longer look at the material Tash found too scary.

If you do go to the show with kids, it pays to buy tickets on-line in advance to avoid the lengthy queues. I also recommend going in a group so you can take turns to stay with the child while they are preoccupied — usually with the film clips — and view the finer details in the show.

It’s a wonderful exhibit, a tribute to Burton’s unique and wild imagination, which also does the best possible thing an art exhibition can do: it calls forth an imaginative response in the viewer.

I suspect all of us will have wild dreams tonight.

The ‘celebelephant’ (celebrity elephant) did not disappoint. She is hairy and cute and playful — full of personality according to the commentary kept up by the keepers.

Apparently elephants are allo-parents, that is, the whole tribe looks after the babies–like the ‘sparents’ (spare parents) Mia Freedman writes about. In this picture, Mali is running around with her grandmother, which was apt, seeing as how that’s what Tash was doing a lot of that same week: my mother was visiting from NSW and came to the zoo with us.

We didn’t have to queue for long at all to see Mali. She is currently on show from 11 am-3 pm.

We’ve been taking Tash to the Melbourne Zoo since she was a toddler and just decided to renew our Friends of the Zoo membership for another year. It pays for itself within a few visits, and given we are only two train stations away, we can afford to go on the spur of the moment, even for a short visit.

Melbourne Zoo is the country’s oldest. I have a strong memory of visiting as a child, seeing the same giant tortoises, who are now in their seventies. One of the old-style enclosures has been preserved for the record, and I remember, too, watching the desperate pacing of the big cats in those concrete pens. I know zoos are artificial, imperfect and don’t come close to the thrill of seeing wild creatures in their natural element. But each visit renews my sense of awe at the brilliant diversity of life on this planet and impels to do more to contribute to the conservation of that diversity.

We are loving the new marine precinct with its seal viewing ‘cinemas’ and tanks of the less showy but equally gorgeous weedy sea dragons. So what if the kids like playing on the pirate ship more than watching the wildlife: I still get to watch the seals.

Tash always wants to see the zebras, while her cousin Vinnie–under the influence of The Lion King–is currently enamoured by the wild dogs that share the lion enclosure.

We all love the reptile house, which like the marine precinct is great to visit regardless of the weather. My personal favourite exhibit is the bright blue poison frog–though on our most recent visit, we were all captivated by the black-headed pythons that were literally climbing the walls.

But Tash’s very favourite thing at Melbourne Zoo is the orangutan nest. Every time we visit the complex that houses the quiet orangutans and their noisy neighbours, the siamangs, Tash heads straight for the nest, makes a little bed out of the fabric leaves and curls up for a rest. And being under cover, this exhibit can also be visited at this time of year, too.

As an aside, I read recently that a new study, conducted at Melbourne Zoo, suggests orangutans like looking at us as much as we like looking at them. It certainly seems that way in the photo on the right, taken on a visit to the zoo last May. (Tash chose her outfit on that occasion specially to visit the leopards).

And I’ve just read on the Melbourne Zoo website that the new Sumatran tiger clubs have made their public debut. Looks like we’ll be heading back soon…

Last weekend we went back, this time with another family as an experiment to see whether holidays really are easier when you travel with other people who have kids the same age as your own. The verdict? — Absolutely!

The other family were our friends Diana and Alessandro, nearly-four-year-old Silvia and one-year-old Nadia. Di and Ale have relocated to East Timor and the weekend was a chance to catch up with them and allow Tash and Silvia to catch up, too. The girls got along brilliantly, and Di and I concurred that four parents to three kids is about the perfect ratio.

Tash and Silvia spent a lot of time at Elizabeth Cove — famous for being one of Victoria’s few north-facing beaches — near where we stayed at Ventnor. They paddled in calm shallows, explored rock-pools, collected and buried shells, built and decorated sandcastles, climbed hills, played fairies, rolled about in the sand and even paused to talk and stare out to sea. For me it was magic simply watching them interact with each other and the landscape.

It was one of the most relaxing weekends I’ve had in a long time and we didn’t do much, despite the island’s many attractions. Di had a hankering to visit the koala reserve, having fond memories of the place as a seven-year-old. I was less enthusiastic as the entrance fees are expensive and Tash had been underwhelmed during our previous visit. But we went along for the ride. To the credit of the folks at the Koala Conservation Centre, they sold us all-female foursome a family ticket, which at $25.75 was the cheapest option.

Interestingly, koalas are not native to Phillip Island but were introduced in the late 1800s. The population thrived until the 1980s when loss of habitat, feral animals, traffic and Chlamydophila disease started to take their toll. The association of Phillip Island with koalas was so strong by then that a local ‘Koala Working Group recommended the establishment of a reserve that provided koalas with a protected habitat and visitors with viewing opportunities. Thus the David Forrest Koala Reserve was born.

Things didn’t get off to a great start for us at the reserve when a tour of the first of the boardwalk area yielded only two sleeping koalas — little more than furry bottoms nestled in the eucalyptus.

We moved on to the Woodland Walk, where koalas seemed few and far between. The girls were getting restless and Di was keeping a running total — ‘That’s $12.50 per koala so far’ — when all of a sudden we spotted more, one after the other. When I say we, it was really Di who was the Koala Whisperer. She came upon several in the bush that were low enough to the ground for the girls to get a good look; some were awake and one of them actually moved. Tash and I also ventured into a second boardwalk area where a few more koalas were easily visible.

Staff at the centre commented that spotting the koalas is half the fun, and I guess that’s true if your kids aren’t too fractious and you don’t mind knocking about in the undergrowth — nor paying around $3 per koala for the privilege.

Otherwise, you might be better off walking down to the beach Ventnor at sunset or sunrise, where you might see a wallaby, and are almost sure to see rabbits and mutton birds, for free.

For an agnostic, I’m quite superstitious about Chinese New Year. In 2008, the Year of the Rat, I wore an ox pendant in my earring for the entire year as I read this helped deflect negative Rat vibes for Horse people like myself. It seemed to work: I had a great year.

According to Chinese astrology, the Year of the Tiger is characterised by dramatic change, intensity and travel. This can be exciting for those of us who thrive on change. But as some change can be unwelcome, saddening, even catastrophic, we wanted to get the year off to an auspicious start.

For this reason, we said yes to the ‘money-bags’ we were offered at our favourite yum cha place, the New Kum Den restaurant on Heffernan Lane. The money bags–deep-fried parcels of prawn, pork and corn fastened into bags with strands of spring onion–help to bring wealth in the year ahead.

We also took care to position ourselves for the Dai Loong Dragon Parade where we could touch the dragon as it passed. This, too, is said to bring good fortune in the year ahead. (Unfortunately, in an inauspicious moment, the camera battery ran out, hence no photos of the Dragon!).

Earlier we had been deafened by firecrackers exploding at the intersection of Russell and Little Bourke Streets. Gangs of musicians and lion dancers traversed the laneways bound by Exhibition, Lonsdale, Swanston and Russell Streets to conduct the rituals believed to augur in a prosperous year. Strands of red firecrackers are let off, adding to the noise of the music to scare away evil spirits. Dancing lions snap at heads of lettuce hanging at the entrances of shop-fronts to bring good luck through the doors.

Celebrating New Year in Melbourne’s Chinatown is something I look forward to, and it just seems to get bigger and better. The Children’s Corner in a tent near the intersection of Russell and Lonsdale Streets offered pictures to colour in and small gifts to reward the effort. There was a wonderful array of performances on offer, culminating in a karaoke competition this evening–with “singing lovers” welcomed in a dual celebration of Valentine’s Day.

Of course, we didn’t last that long: our little Rooster had a pressing play date and the Snake and I were tired after a big night out at the inaugural Wheeler Centre event. But that’s another story.

And the photo of the tiger (right) was not taken today in Melbourne’s Chinatown, but in April 2008 at the Tiger Temple in Thailand’s Kanchanaburi province. Whenever I find myself coddling Natasha, I look at this photo and it gives me perspective.

Gong Xi Fa Cai! Happy Chinese New Year. May the change that follows be welcome.

We visited the APT6 in December 2009. Whilst I could have stayed all day, it is a measure of how engaging the exhibition is that with both Roo’s septuagenarian mother and nearly-four-year-old Tash in tow, we spent four hours wandering the galleries.

The APT has a dedicated kids’ program–Tash is holding the guide in a couple of the photos. There are 17 activities outlined in kids’ apt, of which Natasha’s favourite was The Play House by the Japanese team of YNG, artist Yoshitomo Nara and architectural/design firm graf. Located under the escalators on Level 1 of the GOMA, the play house invites you in to take a seat and add drawings to a range of sketchbooks on topics such as ‘Favourite Place’, ‘My Treasures’, ‘Angry Girl’, ‘Night Time’ and ‘Monsters’. You can also add to a growing collection of small objects by leaving something behind. Tash loved the space and kept returning there throughout our time at the APT6 to add more drawings to the library.

But for the most part, Tash was engaged by the APT exhibition as a whole. She was captivated by the Iranian animation, part of a program called The Cypress and the crow: 50 years of Iranian Animation; I joined her to watch The Sparrow and the Boll, exquisite animation designed in textiles. She was also intrigued, as we all were, with PixCell – Elk#2, a work by Japanese artist Kohei Nawa: a stuffed elk, apparently bought on ebay, covered in glass beads in varying sizes (all situated on Level 1).

Tash and Roo spent some time in the media gallery on Level 2 dedicated to the video animations of Hiraki Sawa, 10 short films making up an installation called O and including footage of flying birds silhouetted against the central Australian landscape.

On the same level, Tash and I literally stumbled into Liminal Air – descend 2007, an installation in an enclosed space of white threads suspended from the ceiling and cut into waves so that you ‘disappear’ into the work, the further you move into it. I laughed when I read the official APT6 program description of the work as “creating immersive ‘liminal’ zone offering a profoundly physical experience in which audiences might consider ideas of eternity and the sublime.” Tash and I were less preoccupied with ideas of eternity than we were with playing hide-and-seek in a ‘forest of spaghetti’. And when I was too tired to run after her anymore, I enjoyed sitting back and watching others discover the joy in this piece and the dancing movement created by this engagement.

I’ve honed in on work by Japanese artists in this post, but the APT6 boasts excellent work from artists throughout Asia and the Pacific. Other highlights for me:

• The psychedelic installations of Indian artists Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra that highlight the dreams and costs for Punjabi young people of emigrating to other countries
• Thai artist Manit Sriwanichpoom’s photographs Waiting for the King 2006
• Sopheap Pich’s rattan and bamboo sculptures inspired by the memory of travelling across Cambodia with his family in the wake of the Khmer Rouge
• Australian artist Tracey Moffat’s hilarious montage Other 2009 on the portrayal of ‘the native’ in cinema

There are also some wonderful contributions by Chinese artists. Chen Qiulin’s reconstructs a traditional house in Xinsheng Town no. 275-277, that was demolished to make way for urban development related to the Three Gorges Dam project. This is extraordinary both for the insight it provides into the way the poor in China live, as well as a symbol of what can be sacrificed in the name of development. Also worth watching is his video Garden (2007) that follows flower sellers as they traverse new urban developments in the same area.

People holding flowers 2007 by Ji Wenyu and Zhu Weibing is a standout work, deceptively light-hearted at first glance, but a scathing critique of post-Cultural Revolution consumerism in China. The work has been purchased for the QAG collection.

Roo commented that much of the Chinese work is bleak and depressing, which is true, but it also indicates a liberalisation in the arts, too: a departure from the triumphalist propaganda of the past, which can still be seen in the works from the Mansudae Art Studio in Pyongyang, which were commissioned for the APT6. The inclusion of the North Korean works was controversial, and the Australian Foreign Affairs Minister refused to grant visas to allow the artists to visit with their works. Personally, I welcome any chance for insight into this most secretive of countries, and the North Korean works are striking and technically stunning.

There so much more that I haven’t even mentioned – the stunning mirror mosaics of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, the colossal paintings of Shirana Shahbazi, Subodh Gupta’s metal sculptures… I could go on and on. But not now. I’m too busy monitoring websites for discount airfares so I can get back to Brisbane and visit the APT6 again before it finishes on 5 April 2010. And as I write, Tash has just seconded that idea, saying ‘I want to go back to that white b’sgetti.’

1. Swimming: it’s a no-brainer but beach holidays are all about the beach and Hyams Beach has something for everyone. At high tide the waves are great for body surfing and boogie-boarding, wave-jumping and swimming, though smaller children will need to be carried or have their hands held as the current can be strong. At low tide, the swell is gentle enough for smaller kids to manage jumping and paddling unassisted (supervised, naturally). Hyams Beach is not patrolled, populated without being crowded.

Other kid-friendly swimming places for youngsters are Moona Moona Creek between the towns of Huskisson and Vincentia, and Green Patch in Booderee National Park (see below). But we reckon Hyams is the best beach on Jervis Bay.

2. Rock-pools: Tash claimed one rock-pool at Hymas Beach as her ‘bath’. Another was large enough to serve as a paddling pool for a group of kids. The rock-pools are crawling with marine life – fish, crabs, starfish, anemones – waiting to be admired, scooped up into nets, or poked at with a stick. (What is it with boys and sticks? My brother reckons he never had a stick out of his hand until he took up smoking!). My best find was a small, brown octopus that Tash and I watched dart back and forth from under a rock.

Kids are best off wearing waterproof shoes on the rocks and in rock-pools on account of embedded oyster shells that cut like serrated knives.

3. Snorkeling: Roo spotted a fiddler ray (banjo shark) and a sand shark off the rocks at Hyams Beach. The rocky areas also host a variety of colourful fish – the local Aboriginal (Dhurga) word  for Jervis Bay is Booderee meaning ‘bay of plenty’ or ‘plenty of fish’. I went snorkeling in 1.5 metre water around the Bristol Point rocks at Green Patch and had a great time. There’s reputedly good diving in the area, too.

4. Sand: I’m averse to sand (which poleaxed any teen fantasies I had of being a surfie chick), but in the case of Hyams Beach I make an exception. The sand is famously white – apparently listed in the Guiness Book of Records as the world’s whitest – and provides a blank canvas for the most stunning shades of blue the sky and sea can produce. Plus it’s soft. Like walking on talcum powder.

5. Dolphins: Jervis Bay’s resident pod of dolphins chose New Year’s Day to cruise by us on Hyams Beach – which I’m taking as a good omen. A Vincentia local told me she saw them every morning on her beach walks. Dolphin watching tours by boat can be arranged from Huskisson, but I reckon you’d have to be unlucky not to see them from the shore at least once in the course of a week.

6. Booderee National Park: Owned by the Wreck Bay Aboriginal Community and jointly managed with the Commonwealth Government, Booderee National Park is exquisite; we only scratched the surface in terms of its attractions. The park is home to abundant marine life, flora and fauna and the only Aboriginal owned Botanic Gardens in Australia. We enjoyed swimming and snorkeling at Green Patch beach inside the park, which Tash dubbed ‘the forest beach’ on account of the beautiful bush, studded with colourful parrots, that goes right up to the edge of the sand. There’s a kids’ school holiday program, too.

On the one day the weather was less than perfect, we enjoyed the mangrove boardwalk near the Lady Denman Maritime Museum in Huskisson, the highlight watching red-clawed crabs play hide-and-seek in the mud. We followed this with some rock pooling at Shark Net Bay, which was fun, although the number of shark egg purses (like this one) washed up on the beach was a bit of a worry.

There’s an abundance of bird life in the Jervis Bay area, too. In our immediate neighbourhood we saw rainbow lorikeets, king parrots, yellow-tailed black cockatoos and kookaburras to name a few.

Hyams Beach is on the southwest arc of Jervis Bay, just north of Booderee National Park. It’s a two-day drive from Melbourne, around 2.5-3 hours from Sydney, 4.5-5 hours from Canberra. For accommodation options try Jervis Realty or Hyams Beach Real Estate.

We self-catered, apart from New Year’s Eve when we had dinner at the Vincentia Chinese Restaurant, which deserves an honourable mention for its tasty, reasonably priced food and excellent kid-friendly service.

We stayed at the Federal Hotel in Sukumvit Soi 11, which has been around forever – or at least since the 1960s – where Roo and I had stayed long before Tash came along. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s good value and in a great location. The pool is pleasant, though you’ll want to turn a blind eye to the pink-skinned men breakfasting poolside  on Singha beer from about 10am.

Staying near Sukumvit and surrounds puts you near the Skytrain and Subway, both of which are great for getting around, although be warned that the many stairs make it a hard slog for little legs and pace yourself accordingly.

The Siam Skytrain station is the jumping off point for Siam Square, home of our favourite ‘old school’ coffee shop, the New Light; and the Siam Paragon shopping complex, which houses Siam Ocean World in its basement, the largest aquarium in the southern hemisphere. Ocean World is not cheap but, as described here, it’s an entertaining way to spend an afternoon with kids; the food court on the ground floor is good value, too. And there’s usually something kid-friendly going on around Siam Square: in our case it was a Snow White-themed Christmas display (best not to think too hard about it).

Both the Skytrain and Subway will take you to nearby Lumpini Park, which is about as kid-friendly as it gets in downtown Bangkok. The park has several kids play areas side-by-side: as the equipment is modernised, it seems that rather than replace what went before it, a new play area opens up. The park is Bangkok’s largest and a great place for picnics, Tai Chi, outdoor gym, and that rarest of commodities in the Thai capital, peace and quiet – if you’re not accompanied by a small child, that is.

We hired a pedal boat shaped like a duck to cruise around the lake for 30 minutes or so. The pedalling was bloody hard work but worth it as the lake is brimming with wildlife. We saw fish, turtles, eels and monitor lizards so large we almost mistook them for crocodiles.

The best food find of our time in this part of Bangkok was the Rosabieng bar and restaurant at 3, Sukumvit Soi 11, just down from where we were staying. Rosabieng is the Thai word for the dining car on a train, and there’s one in the restaurant’s leafy garden, as well as a working model train in the air-conditioned interior. The Thai food is sensational, with an exciting selection of dishes. I could have eaten there every night. Tash was made to feel very welcome – she even managed to crash the birthday party of a group from the wonderful Mrs Balbir’s Indian restaurant one of the nights we were there.

Sukumvit also has the advantage of bookshops and department stores where you can stock up on toys for the plane, train and/or beach. Asia Books has a good selection of English language kids books and colouring books; there’s one at Siam Paragon, another at 221 Sukumvit Rd, just past Soi 15.

We stayed a couple of times at the New Siam II Guest House, located in Trok Rong Mai lane off Phra Artit Road. The rooms were simple but comfortable and good value, considering there’s also a pool with jacuzzi and a good open-air restaurant on the ground floor. Slightly more upmarket is the New Siam Riverside, five minutes walk down the lane and across Phra Artit Road, which as its name suggests overlooks the Chao Phraya. Regardless of where you stay, the buffet breakfast on the terrace at the New Siam Riverside is recommended, the passing river traffic guaranteed to keep the whole family entertained.

Heading down Trok Rong Mai lane away from the river takes you a leafy street that backs on to the grounds of Wat Chana Songkhram. We had breakfast here one morning and watched squirrels tight-rope walking along the powerlines above our heads. The temple grounds are a good place for a morning stroll.

A promenade runs along the river parallel to Phra Artit Road from the Pinklao Bridge. Follow it north past the Phra Artit ferry stop (Thai Phra Artit) to Santichaiprakan Park. This pretty, leafy park is built around the Phra Sumen Fort, part of what were once the fortifications of the old city, and also contains one of Bangkok’s last remaining lamphu trees from which the area takes its name. We were too busy soaking up the atmosphere to take photos when we visited, but there’s a nice one here. It’s a great space for running around or sitting in the shade.

Banglampu’s downside (for some) is that it’s a long way from the Skytrain or subway. But it’s easy and enjoyable to get around by ferry. It’s only a few ferry stops from Banglampu to Thewet, for example, where the kids can join in a fish-feeding frenzy at the pier, followed by a visit nearby Dusit Zoo–see here for more details.

For family friendly eating in the area, the restaurant at the New Siam II is a pretty good option, with decent Thai and Western options and a fish tank containing weird shrimp-like creatures.

But my personal favourite is The Old Phra Artit Pier, an ambient wooden place right on the river with hot Thai food, cool music and cold beer on tap. The staff were great with Tash and they even sold Nancy Chandler colouring books at the bar. The only drawback is you have watch that the kids don’t run out of the restaurant and along the old pier into the river.

You can see how that might happen in this photo of Tash at the Old Phra Artit Pier with our friends Shal and Randy, taken in April 2008: in the distance behind them you can see all the way across the river to the lights on the other side.

Stay tuned for a post on staying with kids around Sukumvit…

The tourist brochures say Warrnambool is 3 hr and 15 min drive from Melbourne, but with a 3-and-a-half-year-old in tow and a partner with a penchant for op shops, our trip took closer to 5 hours.

At our first stop we enjoyed excellent coffee and cakes at the Winchelsea Larder; I was only sorry we weren’t there at lunchtime for what looked like a great Ploughman’s Platter (AUD$12.90), plus kid’s menu version ($5.30); a genuinely kid-friendly venue with fabulous food and produce.

We lingered longer in Colac, first at the adventure playground situated on the edge of the lovely Botanic Gardens overlooking Lake Colac (follow the signs from the highway down Queen St and turn right into Fyans St; the playground is opposite the caravan park). The park has everything from a wheelchair-accessible swing to an old-school roundabout and half-dome climbing frame. Our personal favourite was the boat on a spring overlooking the lake, which fitted all three of us.

We had lunch at the Botanic Cafe, situated at the opposite end of Fyans St from the playground, also overlooking Lake Colac. Kid-friendly, good value and picturesque location.

Then it was on to Warrnambool, where we stayed with our friends Tam and Bill in a house overlooking the Hopkins River. It was raining when we arrived but as soon as it cleared, we headed to nearby Logan’s Beach for some whale watching. We got lucky: the mother and calf hanging out in the area showed their heads and tails, and at least one of them was blowing while we watched. It turned out to be the one and only time we saw whales in three visits to the viewing platform. Then again, Tash was more entertained playing with Tam’s “binnochios” (binnoculars) than she was by the distant whales.

Sunday, on Bill’s advice, we headed for Tower Hill Reserve, a lush wildlife sanctuary inside a dormant volcano that collapsed in on itself some 30,000 years ago. We parked by the Visitor Centre and within moments we were getting up close and personal with a couple friendly emus, and spied four koalas in nearby trees. We also saw black swans by the lake and a kangaroo in the wetlands area.

Tower Hill has a fascinating history. Despite being declared Victoria’s first national park in 1892, the area had been virtually clear-felled by the 1930s. Restoration work begun in the 1960s, based on a detailed painting of the Tower Hill in 1855 by Victorian artist Eugene Von Guerard. As the In The Artist’s Footsteps website notes, “It is the classic example of where a painting, by a realist artist, at a time when photography was in its infancy, can be a very valuable conservation resource.” These days the conservation efforts are so effective that koalas have to be periodically relocated from the area to prevent them from taking over.

From Tower Hill we drove to Port Fairy and would have meandered longer around this pretty town except that the port area was closed off for a bicycle race. We opted instead for lunch at Time & Tide, as recommended by Tam, a cafe with gorgeous sea views and even more gorgeous cakes. My smoked salmon fritta was truly delectable and the coffee good, too. No kids menu but they were able to rustle up a kid-friendly dish or two ($4.50), and Tash’s hot chocolate came out with a smiley face sketched in chocolate syrup. The gallery setting means it’s better suited to immobile babies than active toddlers. The turn off to Time & Tide is after the Catholic church and just before the water tower; follow the signs down the unsealed road to the beach.

Rain ruined our plans to build sand castles on the beach out front of the cafe. Instead we drove back to Warrnambool, put on our raincoats and went out to play at the Lake Pertobe Adventure Playground. The playground is a fabulous feat of engineering, built on a former swamp whose “pestiferous exhalations” were the subject of written complaints as early as 1879. (The name ‘Warrnambool’ allegedly derives from a Kuurn Kopan Noot Aboriginal term, meaning ‘two swamps’). Nowadays the park is 20 hectares of lakes, lawn and playgrounds and home to abundant bird life.

Having become playground aficionados since the birth of our daughter, I reckon Lake Pertobe is one of our best finds, not least of all because it caters for adults as well as kids: the highlight for all 3 of us were the flying foxes, one for under-12s and another for over-12s. (We were having too much fun to take photos, but there are some here). To find the flying fox station, head right from the main car-park past the maze.

What worked for us over our weekend in Warrnambool was to come equipped for inclement weather, make the most of fine spells to get out and about, and not to be deterred by a shower or two. We had a busy, fun time and I felt we’d only scratched the surface in terms of what the region has to offer.

Also worth noting for the trip back is the castle-like Apex Playground in Terang, which has low doorways hazardous to unsuspecting adults and was a bit slippery in the wet, but is beautifully located overlooking the croquet club and has everything a would-be princess needs to fire her imagination.

Other recommended food stops are the Cobb Loaf Cafe in Camperdown, and Cafe Gravity in Colac (impressive kids’ menu with $7 dishes), both on the main street/highway on the right side heading towards Melbourne.

NAIDOC stands for National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee and NAIDOC week is an opportunity to celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and the contributions of Indigenous Australians in all walks of life.

The event was brilliantly organised and included a traditional music and dance session where an Indigenous elder and young dancers invited kids in the audience to learn to dance like emus, kangaroos and eagles. There was also a dance symbolising fishing and the celebration of a good catch. Tash was too shy to join in the dancing but was rapt to witness the didgeridoo played live (she’s only seen it in books and heard it on CD).

My friend Helen alerted me to the NAIDOC Day event and we met up with her and her 2+ year old daughter Iris, sister Genevieve and her 4 kids for the celebration. We participated in a smoking ceremony, where the kids had their faces painted with ochre, followed by a boomerang painting session that all the kids got into.

There were drinks, fresh fruit, cakes, damper and barbequed sausages/vegie burgers in bread–all free, thanks to Aboriginal Housing Victoria and the fabulous volunteers at the Collingwood Children’s Farm.

It was wonderful to be around so many Aboriginal families and kids having fun.

The Farm itself was a great venue, the landscape forming a beautiful backdrop to the ceremonies, and lots of farm animals on hand to entertain the kids afterwards. For Tash the highlight was hand-feeding fresh grass to a white horse; I was rather taken with the 10-day-old black piglets.

We last took Tash to the Collingwood Children’s Farm when she was just under 18 months old, thinking that because she enjoyed reading about farm animals and emulating their noises, she would enjoy seeing the real thing. In fact, most of the animals–bar the ducks and chickens–scared the hell out of her. This visit was much more successful.

I’d always thought the Children’s Farm, whilst wonderful, a bit expensive to visit at $16 per family; but entry was free on NAIDOC Day and Helen tells me it only costs $2 per adult on Farmers’ Market days, the second Saturday of every month, which is great value.

I forgot the camera, but Helen took some great photos, including the one above of the white horse kissing Tash.

I hope to make NAIDOC Day at the Children’s Farm an annual event – even if it means skiving off work to be there.

We started blogging 18 months ago as an on-line diary to keep friends and family up to date with our travels during our ‘year off’ – though it would be more accurate to call it a ‘year on’. A year when the work-life balance was tilted very much in favour of life.

The photo above shows Tash asleep in her father’s arms at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, just before our flight to Cambodia, our home for the year. It was as if Tash had already absorbed the ability of Thai people to sleep anytime, anywhere, after only a few days in the Kingdom. It was the first of many instances where she slipped with apparent ease into a strange and wonderful environment.

As we wrote on during our months away, it emerged from our ‘blog stats’ — the figures that tell you what search terms people use to find your site and what links they click on when they drop by — that the site was filling a gap in terms of upbeat information on travelling in Southeast Asia with small children, especially in countries like Cambodia and Laos. At least one of our readers says she was inspired to take the plunge and head off travelling with her small son on the strength of our posts — which is about as good as it gets in terms of compliments!

This has inspired me to keep the blog going as a guide to travelling with children, wherever we are in the world — a reminder to recapture the spirit of travelling even at home. To slow one’s pace. Take in the sights. Be in awe and appreciation. Take joy from watching a child experience the world in all its glorious diversity.

Thanks to everyone who has followed our travels and visited our blog. Keep on dropping by and feel free to leave comments.

Oh, the places we’ll go…

I know, I know, it’s easy to see: at the Melbourne Zoo, the keeper is handling a juvenile American Alligator, whilst in Phuket, the keeper is handling a full-grown Asian crocodile.

Seriously though, there were also differences in what we learned at the respective shows.

At Melbourne Zoo, we learned that crocodilia have evolved with five key characteristics that have enabled them to survive for more than 2 million years: the ability to be submerged but breathe above the water; the capacity to draw energy from the sun through their backs; a rudder-like tail that propels them through the water; estivation, or the ability to hibernate during hot, dry times of food scarcity and re-emerge once the rains come; and being communicate with their young, even whilst the babies are still inside the eggs. A mother crocodile may use her teeth to help a baby having trouble breaking out of its egg.

In the first photo, Tash can be seen far right standing next to the zookeeper and holding a megaphone to ‘demonstrate’ a baby crocodile communicating with her mother. And because she was part of the show, she got to pat the American Alligator afterwards [photo 3].

At Phuket Zoo, we learned sometimes a crocodile will simply not be roused, no matter how many times it is poked, prodded and dragged by the tail [photo 4] — and even when someone lies on top of it [photo 3].

The Crocodilia show is part of Melbourne Zoo’s school holiday program and is on at 11am and 1pm in the marquee next to the Carousel park.

The Crocodile Show at Phuket Zoo is a feature attraction and can be seen at various times throughout the day.

I first visited Siem Reap and the surrounding temples in 1992. Back then, the United Nations was running Cambodia, civil war was still raging in the countryside, and there was just me and my partner—literally. We barely saw another living soul.

Sixteen years later, we returned with our nearly-three-year-old daughter to a town that had changed so much it was unrecognisable, and temples crowded with foreign tourists. It was a very different experience but equally worthwhile.

The first thing that struck me about visiting Angkor with our daughter was that what excited us was rarely the same as what excited her. Exploring the jungle-covered ruins of Ta Phrom might be fun, but what really had her riveted were the tiny frogs and giant snails that shared the stones with her (we were warned against touching the snails as they can cause a rash).

While she showed mild interest in the carvings of the apsaras at Angkor Thom, she was thrilled by the group of apsara dancers in traditional costume who posed for photos with her for a mere $1 donation.

Another friend’s kids most enjoyed the grassy expanse in front of the Terrace of the Elephants, and watching the real elephants ferry the tourists around Angkor Wat. The horses, too, are popular with the kids.

But visiting the temples themselves can be boring, if not gruelling for a toddler. So here are a few tips, gleaned from a number of families, for making the trip as enjoyable as possible for everyone.

1      If your back is up to it, consider carrying your child in a baby/toddler backpack. If you live in Phnom Penh and don’t have your own, someone on the Yahoo group Cambodia Parent Network might lend you one. Contact cambodiaparentnetwork@yahoogroups.com

2      If your toddler is too heavy or active to be carried, make sure they have decent walking shoes that don’t cause blisters (seems like a no-brainer, but we got caught out on this one).

3      Be realistic about what you can achieve: visiting 2 or 3 temples is probably enough for one day.

4      Hire a guide: in kid-friendly Cambodia, a good guide will be sensitive to kids’ needs, such as pointing out all the fantastic animals to be seen on the bas-reliefs at Angkor Wat and the Bayon. Ours even carried our daughter up the steeper staircases so we could all enjoy the view.

5      Stay at a hotel with a pool and make the most of it to take time-out between tours.

Some midrange, kid-friendly hotels recommended by resident expats are the Auberge Mont Royal d’Angkor, the Borann l’Auberge des Temples and the Pavilion d’Indochine. All have pools, gardens and kid-friendly touches. The Majestic Angkor was also recommended for older children (pool but no garden).

If you really want to enjoy the temples at your own pace, consider travelling with another family or other adults and taking turns at childcare and temple viewing.

That said, seeing the temples through the eyes of a child can be an enriching experience. While I remember the breath-taking grandeur of the temples on our 1992 visit, travelling with my daughter made me appreciate the details.

Amongst our friends, the jungle temple of Ta Phrom seems to be the biggest hit with the kids. Visiting early around 8 or 8.30am will get you there ahead of the tour buses.

In Siem Reap, the Butterflies Garden Restaurant is worth a visit. If the butterflies don’t keep the kids occupied, chances are the ponds, bench swing and garden will.

There’s plenty for kids to see at the enclosed Night Market, too, and the juggling cocktail barmen at the fabulous Island Bar in the middle should keep them distracted long enough for you to enjoy a cool drink.

Also recommended are the traditional dance shows. The Apsara Theatre (also referred to as ‘Angkor Village’) on Wat Bo Road has a 6.30-8.00 pm dinner and show—free for toddlers—which our daughter found captivating.

This article was originally written for AsiaLIFE magazine.

That said, it wasn’t all bad. We stayed at Kata Lucky Villa, which I’d happily recommend (the photos on the website don’t do it justice), and Kata beach was nicer than I’d expected. The sand was clean and soft, the water calm and clear, and the banana lounges only two-deep. We spent most mornings there, surrounded by Russians and Northern Europeans who, as Roo pointed out, must think it’s Paradise. There’s also a decent place to eat at the southern end of the beach called Kata Seafood, right next door to a bar built beneath a sacred tree.

We visited old Phuket town a couple of times. Established by Chinese traders and tin miners, and there are some well preserved shophouses and other buildings from the 1900s up to the 1960s, especially on and around Thalang Road. We had a great curry lunch at Aroon Restaurant at 124 Thalang Rd; and the shophouse at the China Inn Cafe (also selling textiles and antiques) at 20 Thalang Rd was particularly beautifully restored. We also visited the Phuket Provincial Hall, the setting for the US Embassy in the film The Killing Fields. There’s a terrific walking tour guide available here.

Phuket’s other prime attraction (at least in my opinion) is its drag shows, the most famous and polished of which is Simon Cabaret. The intrigue starts with a line on the brochure, “She is more of a man than you will ever be and even more of a woman”, and I’m willing to bet there are audience members who leave without realising all the performers began life as men.

Simon Cabaret is energetic and great fun, with over-the-top sets ranging from Ancient Egypt to Imperial China, Brazilian Carnivale to a faux rainforest. Numbers are sung in Chinese, Japanese and English — Dreamgirls providing rich material — though surprisingly little in Thai, apart from a traditional Issarn song that starts out as a slapstick by a large, mannish, middle-aged kratoey but ends as a rather poignant performance of ‘I Will Survive’. That performer danced among the audience and planted a sparkly kiss on Roo’s cheek, and for once Tash was not the main attraction in our family.

For her part, Tash was rivetted by the show and all the ‘princesses’. “That was really fun!” she said, as we piled into the minibus to go back to our hotel.

Tickets were 750 baht including door-to-door transport and we felt we got our money’s worth. The showgirls are happy to pose for photos outside after the show, but be aware you have to pay a 100 baht tip per performer in the photo. The most popular performers pull the lesser stars in so they can get tips, too, and it’s wise to be gracious about this. They’re only looking out for each other.

On our last night in Phuket, we watched a captivating sunset over the sea — a novelty for us who live on the southeast coast of Australia — then chanced upon the swanky Kata Beach Resort and Spa offering a buffet dinner in a garden overlooking the beach. This in itself was lovely, especially with Tash on her best behaviour. But we really hit the jackpot when the keyboard player/songstress duo pumping out the slow rock classics gave way to a group of performers I could only describe as ‘Simon Caberet rejects’.

The open-air show was cheesy beyond belief, with performers out of step and wardrobe malfunctions all over the place. But we all loved it! Tash alternated between emulating the dance moves of the ‘fairies’ — there was an excess of feathered wings, headdresses and tail pieces — and sitting at the foot of the stage, absolutely captivated.

It was the perfect last night.

Tash got to choose the destination for our last morning in Phuket, and we spent it at Phuket Zoo. It was pretty ordinary as far as zoos go, but four months later Tash still remembers the dodgy show we saw there and the man putting his head in the crocodile’s mouth.

I wonder how much else she remembers.

We flew home from Phuket via Sydney to Melbourne, arriving home just in time for a heatwave, followed a week or so later by terrible bushfires. Both Roo and I started new jobs within weeks, fortunate to find work and to find employers flexible enough to let us work four days per week, giving us both a day each at home with Tash.

It was never going to be easy settling back in at home. Our year in Cambodia saw the work/life balance tipped very much in favour of life. Back in Melbourne, the scales seem tipped to the other extreme.

But we are trying to keep alive the spirit of The Great Balancing Act by making the most of our days off with Tash and doing our best to get out on the weekends, too.

And so we’ll keep this blog going, with a shift in emphasis from Asia to Australia.

At least for now…

1 Night Market – Top of the list is Krabi’s riverside food market, an area beside the port that fills up with rot ken – vendor carts – in the evenings, selling delicious local food. Atmospheric, highly affordable and packed with locals, the night market alone is worth the trip into Krabi town. In addition to all the vendor carts, there’s a fold-away restaurant, Nong Eang, where you can sit down to fish fried in garlic and pepper or duck soup with noodles, and cold Singha beer. Tash tucked into the local biryani. There’s also carts selling Issarn favourites such as som tam – spicy green papaya salad – dried beef and sticky rice, sweet roti or ‘Thai pancakes’ and every imaginable snack on a stick. There’s a toilet block (squat-style) costing 2 baht to use. The night market is on Thanon Khong Kha, a 5-7 minute walk towards the river from the main songtheaw stop on Thanon Maharat.

2. Neanderthal statues holding up traffic lights - What genius came up with the concept of cavemen carrying traffic lights? Krabi province is the sight of some ancient human remains, but putting that minor point of interest together with traffic control takes special talent. According to one website, “Traffic lights have never been fun, and they rarely qualify as points of interest. Krabi Town saw that as an opportunity.” I can’t believe we didn’t get a photo of them, but there’s one here on the aforementioned website. The traffic lights are on Thanon Maharat at the intersection with Thanon Sukhon.

3. Fortune telling machine, Vogue building – Vogue on Thanon Maharat is Krabi town’s only department store (not counting Tesco Lotus en route to the airport), a quaint collection of clothes and accessories stalls. But the real attraction is on the landing between the first and second floors: an old-fashioned, coin-operated fortune telling machine. Five baht will set the Wheel of Fortune turning; inside a rotund Buddha raises a branch above his head and brings it down on a numbered groove on the wheel. Your fortune is on the corresponding slip of paper in the numbered pigeon-holes in the base of the machine. You’ll need someone who reads Thai (or Chinese) to translate for you. If your fortune isn’t so lucky, roll the slip of paper into a strip and tie it around a tree to alleviate the bad luck. (I was advised to do this, though it didn’t prevent the accidents I’d been warned about: beware of the slipperiness of the freshly mopped tiled footpaths in Krabi town!).

4. Day/night market – on Thanon Sukhon, the main day/night market is a great place to shop for fresh food and to eat lunch or dinner. Try the fantastic geng pum pla, a spicy fish soup typical of the south, made with pumpkin, potato, pear-shaped eggplants and dried fish. The phad khi mao, a stir-fried dish of bamboo shoots and fish balls with chilli is mouth-numbingly good. The most authentic and exotic food in Krabi.

5. Toy shops, Thanon Maharat – one for the parents of infants and toddlers. Krabi’s main street hosts several toy shops with all the things you need to buy ten minutes of reading time. The large newsagency in the same strip has a fabulous selection of colouring-in books, too, some in English, most in Thai–not that it matters, if you’re just buying them for the pictures!