As promised, this post is Melbourne through the eyes of JED. Or it could be titled "What to do with Melbourne with children" because this post is about what JED loved about Melbourne.
I shall state from the outset that the twins are very infatuated with Melbourne. Jordan is ready to move there. Forever. She wants to go to school there and go like now, now now.
To JED, Melbourne was about 7 things.
1. The cold weather
This was the most important. That is, once they got used to it. Muffin was the one that took the longest to relish it. It went in order of the amount of insulation they had in their bodies. And Muffin doesn't have any, at all.
But once they climatised, they ran around with jackets and even ventured as far as going to the beach twice. Something I wouldn't have even considered no matter how mild the winter was.
2. The animals.
JED love animals. But as with most urban kids, they are scared of them. So it was funny when Evan wanted to feed ducks (his favourite animal in the world) and run away when the ducks approached him for more. It was similar with the guinea pigs that they could play with at the petting zoo. Evan wanted to have the guinea pig but was squealing about it being ticklish because of its claws. I liked the Open Range safari type animals more than the local Aussie ones and while I understood that it made sense for the joey to be head in in the pouch, I was grossed out by the fact that there were a pair of legs sticking out of Mama-Kanga's belly. No one got why I was grossed out so I was left alone to make faces.
b. St Kilda
St Kilda's a pretty bohemian part of Melbourne and it follows that the playground there is similarly so. It looked like a junkyard with odd pieces of wood structures painted in a cacophony of colours. There was a haphazard feel to it, it was challenging in places for the kids with an adrenaline junkie's dream of a flying fox that whizzed at top speed and only stopped with a mighty clang when it hit the end and caused the kid to rebound or get thrown off into wood chips (though we didn't see any kid get thrown off!)
Similar to the Parkville playground, even though we spent 3 hours there, JED didn't cover every inch of it. They climbed a tree, discovered secret tunnels built under the playground structures and tried to run up a skateboard run which was close to impossible. The playground was run by the city council and there were crates of free fruit for the kids. With places like these where you can see so much love and care has gone into creating it, I was happy that I could put in a donation to keep the place going or to help buy the next crate of fruit.
4. Fake snow
I badly wanted to drive up to Mt Buller for some snow even if we didn't ski. But the men, who were the designated drivers refused to budge. It was too long a drive to see mounds of ice and they couldn't imagine tetchy kids all the way there and disappointed kids back. The next alternative was an ice rink near the hotel that had a fake snow slope.
The cold, together with the speed thrilled JED to bits especially because the only way to stop was to crash headlong into a thick padded wall. Muffin and Jordan were the most adept. I came down screaming while Evan internalised all his fear with a constipated look on his face. It wasn't enough to totally get the snow jollies out of the way but it did go some way into assuaging it.
If at any time, a child suggests that rowing a boat would be fun, heavily indoctrinated by years of singing that insipid kid song, please say no. Against our better judgement, we agreed to row a boat down the duck pond. With 5 in the boat, the weight wasn't evenly spread out and that meant I spent half the time worried we might truly capsize. And never believe the children when they promise to help row because all they do is splatter water and complain their arms hurt. So rather than rowing, we spun in circles in the general direction of the current, bouncing off both banks and miraculously spun back to where we started. By then, there was water in the boat and JED had all been splashed by algey mucky water that was filled with duck pee.
There is a Chinese saying about fishing that goes along the lines of "even if can't catch fish, settle for the shrimp". It sounds better in Chinese. That was the philosophy that JED approached Melbourne winter. To them, winter meant snow. We spent the better part of the year dispelling that notion so they settled for the next best thing. Leaves.
Piles of leaves, leaf tracks, just shuffling and rustling in leaves, picking at them, comparing the different shades of yellow, orange and green was interesting enough that they left the adults alone.
My takeaway from the entire trip was that fun didn't need to be expensive at all. So, no we didn't go and see the penguins. Nor did we take the windy Great Ocean Road or the coal spitting- tear inducing choo choo train round the Dandenongs. And it really didn't matter to JED nor their friends.
Every one needs more of these sorts of holidays. It does wonders for the soul.
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