Ahhhh holidays. The excitement, the anticipation, the sense of impending adventure.

We went on our first family holiday at the end of October with our then five and a half month old baby boy, and Noosa was our destination.

We couldn’t wait to frolic amongst the sunshine, the surf, and be surrounded by the sweet sweet air of anywhere else but here.

We arrived at the airport early Sunday morning for our early morning flight. God knows why anyone takes a flight early on a Sunday morning… In fact, it was SO early on Sunday that it was still essentially Saturday.

Both my husband and I had been pooping our pants just a little bit in the lead-up to the flight, worried about how our little one would travel on the plane. Would he scream so much that the pilot would purposefully look for turbulence to knock him out?? Would he vomit all over the 3 rows in front of us Exorcist style? What was in store for us?

And who would be forced to sit next to us?

We were both wishing and hoping that we would be seated next to an old lady named Mabel, with no hearing. However if that little old lady was unavailable, then we would be happy to accept Mary Poppins as our flying companion. Yep she would do.

In the end we didn’t get Mabel or Mary Poppins. Instead we got the next best thing…

The seat next to us was empty. Hooray!

Having an empty seat next to us meant that I could stretch out my legs and use my husband as a foot rest, thus flying to Noosa in comfort. The husband may have been as cramped as hell, but hey, whoever holds the baby wins the space right??!

In the end it didn’t matter too much, as with some forced persuasion the little one managed to slept a good chunk of the way. I wouldn’t have minded a nap too, but I had to concentrate on trying not to drop a human.

We got to our destination, and holy moly was it humid!!! Hooray for holiday weather! I could even probably wear a T-SHIRT at some point! Yes!!!!!!!!!!

**Insert loads of squealing & overly-excited sweaty hand-flapping here please**

We happily carried the wee man through the airport where he was mesmerised by the people, the colours and the shapes which were all new and obviously very exciting. Being the natural born flirt that our child seems to be, he cheekily smiled at everyone, charming them with his big beautiful eyes, whilst we collected our bags, picked up our hire car and headed to our apartment.

We arrived at Club Noosa. Its a ten minute sweat box stroll up the steepest of steep hills from the famous Hastings Street, which is lined with numerous gorgeous shops and picturesque restaurants. The view from our room was quite lovely. It faced the beach so we could catch a glimpse of it amongst all of the lush green trees.

Excited to be on holidays and in such lovely weather, we ventured out to explore the area.

Disappointingly, the weather went from warm & humid to cold & shivery in about 30 seconds flat, leaving us icy cold in our singlets and shorts. I also had a broken pot of scaldingly hot tea spilled on my legs, and although I had wanted to be warm, third degree burns weren’t exactly what I had in mind.

On the way home, our wee one had a poo-splosion in the back of the car which ended up with my husband and I hanging our heads out of the car windows like dogs to breathe in poop free air.

A successful first day? Successful enough.

Monday arrived and it was sunny and hot! Yay!

We drove to the Noosa Botanical gardens, and shuffled around pretended to not be completely melting in the heat. Following that, we hotfooted it up to the Mt Tinbeerwah lookout where we took some delightful family snaps.

We also took our little man for his first swim ever in the hotel pool. The kidlet loved it (after some initial hesitation), and splashed so much that those sunbathing on the sun lounges alongside the pool were in serious danger of drowning.

On Tuesday, we drove to the Ginger factory in Yandina. It is a small, but pretty place for young families to spend a stinking hot afternoon, wandering through the shady gardens whilst trying not to step on one of the many large lizards about the size of my foot which seem to have made their home in the gardens.

We hopped on the “ginger train” which is literally a puffing billy style train that winds through the gorgeous gardens and past the factory, giving us a history of the place all the while.

There were some half-crazed and yet absurdly preened chickens which chased the train through the gardens hoping for food, each with a better hairdo that the last. Yes, I said chickens. With hairdo’s. Worth heading to the Ginger Farm for that alone.

After about an hour of chicken watching, the baby fell unconscious from overstimulation, so the husband and I grabbed a tasty ginger and chocolate parfait with ginger cream to share, and essentially collapsed in the air-conditioned cafe in a ginger and chocolate haze.

And then it was … wait for it … BEACH TIME! Woohoo! The whole reason holidays EXIST!

We headed to Coolum beach which was approximately a half hour drive from Noosa. The beach was a beautiful expanse of white sand and glorious blue water. As it was a weekday, apart from the obligatory swim school lessons, it was very quiet. It was bliss.

But, it was bloody windy.

The husband wrestled to put a beach tent up to keep our little one out of the sun and protected from the wind. However the wind was so strong on the beach this day that we feared a little for our lives, lying prone and spreadeagled over the base of the tent to stop it from flying directly into the path of an innocent kitesurfer with us in it.

I heroically protected our tent, our belongings, and all aforementioned kite surfers within a 10 kilometre radius single handedly, whilst my husband took our little baby boy for his first swim in the ocean. He was fairly tired at this stage, so he grumpily accompanied his dad to the waters edge where he proceeded to eat fist full’s of sand, and lick the ocean water. I know thats what I do when I go the beach.

After an hour or so, we gave up pretending to have fun and headed for home.

On Wednesday we visited the Eumundi markets where again the weather turned from gorgeous and sunny, to miserable and wet in about ten minutes flat. We huddled under a tree that offered little to no protection from the elements whilst stuffing our faces with dutch pancakes and a pastry, before huddling in our apartment for the rest of the afternoon directly angry thoughts at the rain.

On Thursday we got up early and headed down to Hastings street to a lovely beach front cafe for some breakfast! The husband and I shared a chocolate muffin with delicious butter cream. Drool. Every mouthful we ate our baby followed like a hawk. We didn’t give him any. Such jerks.

In the afternoon we headed to Underwater World Sea Life in Mooloolabah, which is a great day out for families, especially those with little sea-curious kidlets.

Our little mister was mesmerised by watching the fish swimming about, alongside lots of sharks, jellyfish, seals, pretty seahorses and one hungry looking crocodile, not that he would have had the foggiest what those animals were. Or what HE was for that matter.

As a side note, that same crocodile scratched its nose at one point like a dog with its hind leg. Or is it his snout? Or maybe his jaw full of man eating teeth? Who the hell knows? Well…Google might I s’pose. Anyway, I had no idea they did that. Hmmm…

Friday arrived and sadly it was time to go home. We flew home with heavy hearts, knowing that it was back to reality once we got off the plane. Reality sucks.

And yet after a very full on week traveling with our baby, we were exhausted.

In fact, I think we need a holiday to get over our holiday. Actually, just let me go find the credit card…

 

 

 

Have you been travelling with your little ones? How did you go? Any tips for fellow travellers on what to do when up in QLD with kids? Let me know below, as I would love to hear from you!

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