Travel Tip TIme - Preserving holiday memories

Do your kids love to collect shells when you go on a beach holiday?  Mine do and over the holidays they have found some really gorgeous ones to add to our collections.  The trouble is often the shells come home and end up broken or shoved anywhere or thrown away.  So we started collecting shells and making a memento of them.  

Photo source here.

We collect our shells (and sometimes sand or rocks) and while we are away I buy a nice jar or vase or holder of some kind.  When we get home we either label our jar like the one above or I write with a sharpie on the bottom where we were when we collected the shells and the date.  Then we have something nice to display that is unique and very memorable.  Many stories come to mind when you pick up a shell out of the jar or look at them through the glass.  We have five jars/vases like this around our home from various places and I love being surrounded by them and their memories.

Sometimes you have to think outside the box when it comes to holiday souvenirs if you want to avoid the cliche magnets and tea towels.

A Weekend at Dicky Beach

We have had a couple of camping trips lately with one of them being a weekend (2 nights) at Dicky Beach on the Sunshine Coast.

I have to say that I loved this caravan park for a break.  The park was lovely and not too big.  The amenities were spotless and the kids enjoyed the pool and the recreation room.

We booked a premium ocean view site which had a concrete slab and power and water and this was the view from the caravan.  You can't really beat it.

A few steps the the right of here and there was a small skate park where Nathan spent most of his free time.

And a few steps forward from the fence and this was what you saw, the inlet and then gorgeous surf beach.

On the surf beach there is a shipwreck, although there is not much left of it these days it is still good to see and very close to the swimming section of the beach.

The beach is patrolled which is excellent and Emma and I spent a lot of time here.

A few paces over the inlet to the right of our van was the surf club.  We went here for dinner on the Saturday night and we were impressed.  The dress code was not fancy which is perfect while camping and the meals were very reasonably priced and huge and delicious.  When you camp at the caravan park you get a sheet of discounts for the club which is great.

If you walk in the opposite direction you will come to a little row of shops including a butcher, convenience store, fish and chip shops and cafes.  We had a huge serving of fish and chips one night which was really good value for money and we also had breakfast at one of the cafe's which was a little bit more expensive but a lovely dining experience.

This park is going on our list of favourite caravan parks and we will be back to stay soon.  I don't think you can get a better spot.   It's a park where you can park the car and not have to get in it again until you leave with everything at your doorstop.

If you are considering a trip to the Sunshine Coast consider Dicky Beach, it's worth it.  You can find the link to the website here.

Singapore Zoo…photo share

This was our third visit to Singapore Zoo and it did not disappoint.  We headed to the zoo early so we could enjoy a buffet breakfast with the Orang utans which was awesome as always. I bought a 3 park pass for the Zoo, River Safari and Night Safari and then had my concierge at the hotel ring to book breakfast and I just paid on arrival because it was cheaper that way for us.  You can do a tour where you get breakfast and your zoo entry if that suits you better. 

I have blogged about the zoo before and you can read my posts here and here. so I thought today I would just do a photo share of our latest visit.

You can also find information about the zoo on their website, link here.

Emma and Nathan both enjoyed holding the snakes at breakfast.

And the high light of breakfast is when these gorgeous animals arrive and hang around for a while. 

The baby was just to die for, super super cute!

 The zoo has plenty of monkeys etc. 

A garden train?

The water park was a refreshing stop for the kids.

The Komodo dragon is Emma's favourite animal at the zoo, go figure.

You get to walk through this enclosure and get really up close and personal with the chameleons and other animals.

We were just walking along the path when I looked up to see this guy and his big branch hanging above me.

Rhino bottoms!

This meerkat could see something up there although we couldn't!

The kids both got to feed the giraffes, another high light (we paid a $5 fee for the food).

And a calming boat ride from one end of the zoo to the other was a welcome respite from walking (we paid a fee for this too).

Singapore has just an amazing zoo, a definite must do when in Singapore!

An amazing day with the elephants in Pattaya, Thailand

During our cruise stop in Thailand we spent a day at an elephant village which was an unforgettable experience.  You can find the website here.  We arrived at about 10am and left at 3pm so we had lots of hours with the animals.  

We first had an elephant ride through water and bush.  Emma and I went first.  I have to say that riding an elephant is not a very comfortable ride, it's really bumpy and whenever I tried to take a photo it was fail due to the movement.

When we got to the other end of our ride we were given quite a bit of time to just pat and feed the elephants. We bought bananas for them at the entrance.  A treat they really love.  The elephant that walked behind us could smell Emma's bananas and keep nudging her with her trunk so she could have one!  Nathan's driver let him back on the elephant to feed it from above. I will also say that elephant's slobber and Emma and I ended up with quite a bit of it on us!

Then we went for a walk through some bush to find out about what the locals do and how they live.  We saw silk worms and a lady making thai silk by hand.

We got to go on this boat which then took us to the other side of the river.  It was just set up on a thick rope which the men wind by hand to move you to the other side.

Once on the other side of the river, these guys below were our transport back to the elephant village.  We sat in wooden carriages with wooden wheels.  It was an awesome experience, we loved it.  

After all that was done we had a really delicious lunch and then had a good hour to hang out with the elephants again.  You could pat them, feed them or just sit and watch them.  The kids had a ball, I don't think they will ever get this much time with elephants again so we took full advantage of it.

To finish the day we had a talk about the elephants.  We learned so much about how they get to be at the village and the work they used to do.  The elephants show all their skills including an old circus elephant who showed us what she could do including picking up 10c coins with her trunk!

And to finish I had to give this gorgeous little one some apples and a big cuddle, he was absolutely gorgeous/

 If you are going to Pattaya a trip to the elephants is a really good day.