Wednesday December 22nd

The day started much earlier than hoped as my eyes opened at 6am.  Not so good as I stayed up til after midnight watching a movie on the laptop. After checking email and reading a book, I was informed we were leaving the house by 830 sharp. It was an exciting trip to Reptile Park north of Sydney.  Being south of Sydney, we had about a 2 hour trip to get there with 8 of us, so we filled two cars and off we went. Traffic moved quite quickly as the morning rush had ended.  We went past the airport and under the tunnel while huge jumbo jets taxied right above us. We went through several long underground tunnels and over the huge Harbour Bridge in Sydney where there was a massive tour ship parked in the bay.  We spent another hour on a couple huge interstate highways before finally arriving at Reptile Land.  It was a bit overcast and the temperature was just right for a day of exploring.

We first watched the two Galapagos turtles that had been there since 1960 and 1980.  They were massive and very interesting.  We went over to ‘the pit’, the main area where shows took place every thirty minutes with the education coordinator humorously explaining the lifestyle of the snakes, lizards and alligators operated in the park.  After frightening many of the children, we got to touch a rather large python and have our photo taken with it.  We proceeded to tour around the park and look at all sorts of indigenous creatures including dingoes, wallabies, assorted snakes, ducks and spiders.  We next attended the alligator show where frozen chickens were fed to many hungry alligators in the pond. Lucas’ shoe fell over the edge and had to be retrieved by a staff member.

 We let the kids run around on the playground equipment and had some fries/pop before the next couple shows on the koala/wombat/snakes took place every 30 minutes at ‘the pit’.  We had an ice cream and headed out to find the kangaroo before our day was done. They had been hiding all day as it started to get warm, but finally found a few hiding and bribed them with some food we bought specifically for them at the gift shop.  Jacob was completely enthralled with the Kangaroo and fed/stroked him for 15 minutes.  The roo was quite enamoured with Jacob as when we left – it followed for a bit and then vigorously hopped after us for ten seconds! We bolted for the gift shop and proceeded to leave another $50 there for a couple more keepsakes the kids will use for a whopping ten minutes in the next year of their lives….

The trip back was much busier as we caught some rush hour traffic around Syndey. After 2 hours, we arrived home and lounged around before supper. Nicholas played some Wii golf while Sienna and Jacob hauled about $6 in from their lemonade stand out on the street. They were quite excited about their money making venture.  After we got kids showered, fed and to bed, we watched a bit of tv and surprisingly did a little research on the computer as to what our next adventure would be tomorrow.  We will see what the boys are interested in doing when they get up. We have to be ‘out of the house’ for the house cleaner who arrives at 830 am so that will be an adventure.