We left our AirBnB at City Beach around 830am, and drove to Margaret River. It takes about three hours to get there, so we decided to stop in Bunbury to let the kids run around for a while. C originally wanted to visit the Dolphin Discovery Centre, but ended up putting the address of Bunbury Wildlife Park into the GPS, so that’s where we went instead.
Checking out of our lovely City Beach AirBnB
The kids couldn’t wait to start playing once they spied the Big Swamp Playground from the car, and N ran straight to the climbing structure once we got there, while C put the twins on a round swing together (and freaked Didi out by pushing them really high). There were so many different areas to play at that we had trouble keeping track of all three kids as they ran from one play area to another.
Slides on the left, climbing structure on the right
The main play area
At the far end of the playground
The twins were fighting over this sand digger
The toddler play area which we didn’t explore
The kids thoroughly enjoyed this large play area, and I think it’s great that it’s an accessible playground, which means that children with special needs can also play here. Best of all, there are no entrance fees for this play area, and you can have a picnic there if you don’t want to rush off for a meal. I think it was a blessing in disguise that we ended up here!
Since we were already there, we decided to visit Bunbury Wildlife Park as well. It’s not very expensive compared to Caversham Wildlife Park and Swan Valley Cuddly Animal Farm, so it’s worth a visit if you have time to spare. Do note however that you’ll have to pay for the animal feed, if you want to feed the animals.
We walked through the first aviary where there were many colourful birds. Some visitors were trying to feed them, but mentioned that some of them tend to bite, so we didn’t let the twins try feeding the birds. N found a bird hiding near him, so he offered it some food, but it nipped his finger a little while trying to get the food that N was offering.
One of the birds was feeding the other!
In the next enclosure, there were swans, ducks and ducklings swimming around. We also walked past a caged kookaburra, but no matter how many times Meimei made me sing the kookaburra song, the kookaburra refused to sing. Oh well.
My favourite exhibit was the wombat! I think it was the first time that we’ve seen one, and it was rather adorable as it paced up and down. I think it’s quite rare to see one that’s so active in the middle of the day! It even propped itself up on the ledge in front of us, and I got a bit nervous even though there was a sturdy fence, because it looked interested in Didi, so I quickly carried him away.
Next up was the kangaroo paddock, and the kids all knew the routine by now. They walked around looking for kangaroos to feed and pat, and were disappointed initially when they could only find one kangaroo. Shortly after we entered the area, a large truck rumbled by outside, and suddenly, all the kangaroos lounging at the far side of the paddock got up and started hopping away from the loud noise, towards us. I have to admit that it was quite scary seeing so many large kangaroos hopping directly to us, but thankfully, they stopped when the truck went away.
It was really nice seeing the kids feeding the kangaroos so happily, even though many of the kangaroos were actually taller than the twins! Meimei was rather brave, and laughed when one of the kangaroos put its front paws on her shoulders (while C and I freaked out).
After we exited the kangaroo paddock, we chanced upon a peacock, and the kids, naturally, wanted to feed it too. The twins kept talking to it, telling it things like, “Peacock, eat this, there’s food here, see? Here, here!” Haha.
This park isn’t very big, and can be covered in an hour or two. N was very eager to visit the Reptile House at the exit, so we spent a bit more time in that section.
We stopped by Corners on King for a quick lunch, before continuing on our drive to Margaret River. The food in Australia is generally quite pricey, but the portion sizes are larger, so we usually get two kids’ meals for the three kids to share. I had a slice of the honey cake, which was a tad too dry for my liking.
Our AirBnB at Margaret River was located within walking distance to Margaret River, so we went on a short walk after we arrived. I wouldn’t really recommend this AirBnB as it was quite sandy indoors, plus there were a lot of large ants in one of the bedrooms, the toilet next to it, as well as the kitchen area. The main thing that bugged me is that it didn’t have a dryer, and I couldn’t do the laundry as it took ages for the clothes to dry, especially when it rained on the first two days of our stay there.
Margaret River was absolutely beautiful, and C even woke up earlier on a few mornings to go jogging there. It gets dark around 6pm, so we didn’t do a very long walk there on the first day, and went out for dinner and grocery shopping at Woolworths.
The twins really liked being able to sit side-by-side in the trolley, and kept asking to go back to the supermarket because of it. I love the huge selection of well, everything, in the Australian supermarkets, so I was more than happy to accommodate their request. There are three supermarkets: Woolworths, Coles and IGA, at Margaret River, but we went mainly to Woolworths and Coles.
That night, I got the kids to work on some activities from our Fun on the Farm activity pod that I got from Peas in a Box, since they weren’t sleepy. I was actually quite ambitious and brought FOUR activity pods along, but I was usually too tired to do any activities with them by the end of the day, so we will slowly work on the activity pods over the next few weeks in Singapore. (Wait for my Peas in a Box review and giveaway post k?)
There were quite a few activities in the activity pod, but we didn’t finish every single one, as I wanted to get the kids to sleep and get enough rest for the next day’s programme.
More about what we did at Margaret River in the next post!
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