It is a truth universally acknowledged that an American woman in possession of the good fortune to live in Australia must be in want of hyperbolic exclamations over the native animal life. (Hey, if I’m going to crib, I’m going to crib from the best.)  But in all seriousness, I’ve lived here for four years and still can’t get over how crazy native Australian animals are. And I’m not even talking the biped types. Kangaroos. They really exist in the wild and everything. And don’t get me started on platypuses. Or my personal favorite in the marsupial family, the echidna, which looks like a really adorable porcupine with a platypus snout.

Right. There is a point to all of this, besides establishing that Australian native life has the ability to reduce my prose output to baby-talk gibberish. In October of 2009, we took our first expedition as a family of four, spending a week in South Australia. After a relatively brief couple of days in Adelaide, the capital city, we drove on down to Kangaroo Island, a place where rare species outnumber humans (there are only 4,400 permanent residents on the nearly 100-mile landmass).

Traveling with young children can be a delicate balance, or at least it is for our family. We typically thrive in places that are outdoorsy enough to accommodate our free-range older daughter, Jessica (who was four at the time of this trip) but settled enough to provide food and accommodation that’s above basic yet not so swanky that they blanch at the sight of a rough and tumble foursome completed by baby Lily (then six months). Kangaroo Island fit that description perfectly.

We stayed in the largest town of  Kingscote, about an hour’s drive from the ferry landing terminal at Penneshaw. Because of the girls, we chose two hotels with serviced apartments, which proved to be a mixed bag. One apartment was so execrable as to defy description, and we ended up fleeing at around 10 p.m. for a hotel room. Happily the other, in the Acacia Apartments, was the total opposite, and it’s where we stayed for the majority of our visit. No gratuities were exchanged for this comment – I just highly recommend the place!

Although Australia is a land dominated by summer, it does extend far enough south such that flocks of Little Penguins make their appearance on the shores of the southeastern states. So on our first day on Kangaroo Island, we took a nighttime guided tour of the penguin nesting grounds on the shores of Penneshaw. As we were oohing and aahing over the unbelievably adorable sight of tiny penguins waddling around the rocky beaches and honking and squeaking as they settled in for the night, Jessica told us “And you know what the penguins are saying? What a cute human exhibit on the wooden benches. And the little blonde girl humans are sooooooooo adorable.”

Of course, viewing animals is no match for getting up close and personal with them, which we did at the Pardana Wildlife Park. A privately owned animal park run by a husband and wife team, the Pardana Wildlife Park features, among other things, a small paddock where you can feed Kangaroo Island kangaroos (hey, when in Rome, right?). The kangaroos on the island are on the smaller side – they grow about waist-height and this particular bunch were placid, probably from the regular feeding as much from the sunny, warm weather. At this time, I have a warm, personal empathy for marsupials, being as how I wear the younger heiress in a sling for convenience and ease of transport. I swear some of the females in the bunch gave me the “you too?” look.

Other animal-related highlights to be found on Kangaroo Island:

• Daily pelican feedings off the docks at Kingscote. Every day around sunset, a local resident comes out and feeds pelicans. You can gather around and get pretty much up close and personal with the birds, which are both a.) larger than I expected and b.) comical. The guy doing the feeding buys out of his own pocket and canvasses the crowd for a $5 per person payment; for the entertainment you get and the man’s knowledge of the pelican breed and this particular flock, it’s not bad value.
• Seal Bay Conservation Park. A pristine beach so lovely it’ll make your throat ache, and also home to herds of seals. You can either go for a tour directly on the beach with a guide, or take a walk down a boardwalk that gets you within a couple hundred yards of the creatures. We opted for the boardwalk because the beach tour lasted an hour and once you start, obviously, you can’t stop the tour; that kind of stricture can be dicey with a young family.

This trip was our first as a family of four, and much to my relief Lily follows in her older sister’s footsteps as an eager and mostly flexible traveler. Having said that, I really don’t think you can find an easier destination to find delight, but either way, it was a perfect first vacation as a foursome.

Rachel Alembakis is an expat American living in Melbourne with her husband and two daughters. She’s not sure whether she’s a cautionary or celebratory tale about what happens when you go to a bar and meet an Australian man.

I love this post because to me it reflects the essence of what traveling with children teaches you about patience, expectations, and yes, even your own dreams for what a trip will be. Certainly it is one of my dreams to see the Great Barrier Reef before it vanishes – perhaps if I’m lucky I’ll get to do it in Rachel’s (and her daughters’) very good company.

It’s been almost exactly a year since we went to far North Queensland, on the northeastern coast of Australia, for a holiday. We went for many reasons – a trip to balmy tropical climes, and a celebration of a momentous piece of news for us – I was pregnant with our second child, our daughter Lily, who is now nearly five months old.

I’ll say from the outset that Cairns and its environs – our home-away-from-home for the week we were there – are a touring family’s paradise. Australians are good travelers, and they also make very professional hosts in return. Infrastructure is geared for making people of all ages happy. No town is too small for a park with picnic benches and coin-operated gas-barbeques, and most places you book are more than willing and able to welcome even the most energetic children.

On this special trip, we decided to splurge on our accommodation and ended up in Palm Cove, an upscale resort town about 20 minutes outside of Cairns’ airport. We went for a serviced apartment at the Angsana Hotel; the photo above was taken from our room there. Suffice it to say that it was luxe (three pools! Free family cocktail hour!) without getting into a full laundry list of how and why it differed from the seven or so years of backpacking travel experience my husband and I had before having children.

North Queensland is probably most famous for the Great Barrier Reef, that archipelago of coral reefs so beautiful as to make you think you were dreaming. I’d never seen it before, and, if climate change experts are correct, there may not be much time left to see it. Due to warming oceans and increasingly acid waters, the reefs are dying and may be bleached out boneyards by the middle of the century. Selah.

In planning this trip to Nirvana-with-an-Aussie-accent, we had naturally assumed that we would take a cruise to the Great Barrier Reef and indulge in some snorkeling. It was a reasonable presumption – we all love swimming; we also tried snorkeling in our local pool just to familiarize the then-three-year-old Jessica with how the tube works, and she took to it, well, yes, like a fish to water. And she’s healthily obsessed with Finding Nemo. It should have been a recipe for success.

There’s just one detail I must mention: my family lives in Melbourne, the least-beach-y capital city in Australia. Melbourne is many things – fashion and food, culture and the Melbourne Cup (the country’s equivalent of the Kentucky Derby) but it is not – repeat not – an iconic beach-going city. We live in the northern suburbs as well. As a result, we don’t spend much time in the ocean. This small fact has critical implications to this adventure.

There are a plethora of possibilities if you want to snorkel or dive the Great Barrier Reef – full-day, half-day, various destinations, various packages. My gut instinct was that a half-day expedition was going to be enough, a supposition confirmed by the very helpful concierge at our hotel, who told us that visitors with young children usually found a half-day package sufficient. We opted for the Big Cat Green Island Cruise, which is a 45-minute voyage from Cairns’ reef terminal.

I’d like to tell you about the beauty of Zee Deep, replete with Jacques Cousteau accent and prose. I’d love to tell you that our daughter became an adept snorkeler and swam around the reefs with skill, joy and acumen. But I can’t. Because once we stepped off the boat and onto the beach, masks, snorkels, flippers in hand, my daughter waded up to her knees, braced herself as the warm and gentle waves lapped up over her stomach, looked at the horizon, turned back to me and said, levelly:

“Mummy, I’m not gonna do it. This pool is far too big.”

So Jess and I sat on the shore and let the waves lap our feet. She used her flippers to dig a hole and build a castle, decorated with shells and twigs. My husband started out, hoping that if he went out, Jess would be inspired to follow. Ten minutes later, he came back, reporting that he’d seen a nurse shark right under his feet.

Jess looked up from building her castle and said “There’s definitely no way I’m swimming in that pool.”

Who’s going to argue with that? So in the end, we went on the semi-submersible boat and saw Nemo and his friends from behind a thick screen of glass. And it was beautiful. Magical. I had tears in my eyes in mingled awe and misery, thinking that this precious ecosystem may not exist when Jess is old enough to bring her children here. Jessica squealed with delight, and proceeded to sleep through the second half of the tour. It was enough, and it was perfect.

Travel Tips for Cairns:

Cairns is a city that has put a lot of thought into how to best attract and please all sorts of travelers. For the outdoors-loving family, the parks are a.) free and b.) not to be missed. Two in particular were a real hit: Muddy’s Playground and the Esplanade Lagoon, an artificial beach with salt water about 2 feet deep, overlooking the ocean. Being mindful of the dangers of too much sun exposure, both of these parks feature generous shading, park benches and tables. I think we visited the playgrounds on three separate days.

Rachel Alembakis is an expat American living in Melbourne with her husband and two daughters. She’s not sure whether she’s a cautionary or celebratory tale about what happens when you go to a bar and meet an Australian man.

Monday Dreaming note: I’ve decided this week not to use Mr. Linky, because I haven’t been very happy with how it looks or works. If you’d like to share your Monday Dream, please leave a comment about it below; if it’s the most recent post on your blog and you enter the url, a link to it will automatically appear with your comment. Or you can manually include a link in the comment itself. I’m going to explore other options for a linking widget for future weeks. Questions? See About Monday Dreaming.

This post talks about the challenge of showing someone around the city you live in when you also happen to have small children. I hope you enjoy.

Being the tour guide, not the tourist

I presume myself to be a good traveller, but I’m never sure that I’ve made the leap into being a good tour guide. Having lived in Paris, London and now Melbourne, Australia in the past decade, I’ve had my fair share of visitors, and assuming the mantle of ambassador and minister of culture has always sat uneasily as I have lingering doubts that I’ve really shown guests a good time.

This anxiety that I haven’t succeeded in showing off a home city to its fullest extent (there has to be a German word for this) has only intensified since my first daughter arrived four years ago. Whereas before, I could open up a Lonely Planet, mix in some personal destination favorites and put on a reasonably good show (and, let’s face it, if you can’t conduct people around London or Paris, there’s a real problem), I have the distinct suspicion I’m not exhibiting Melbourne to textbook level. It’s a lower-key city than Sydney, which will absolutely poleaxe you with unbelievable views from just about anywhere in the Harbour. But Melbourne is music venues and fashion, cafes and restaurants, and is the sporting capital of the country (God help you if you don’t have a “footy” team during the Australian Rules Football season; your conversational outlets have just halved). It’s big/small city that I’ve grown to love, and I want to do right by the old girl when people come calling.

When my sister booked a trip that recently ended, I wondered what – and more importantly how – I was going to show her. If you’re wondering what I mean by how, the ostensible reason for her visit is the birth of our second daughter, who is now 3 months old. She’s portable, but I’m a bit whacked out on less than my full measure of sleep and I don’t think I’m up to my Letita Baldrige best. Nevertheless, c’mon – if you’re going to travel 10,000 miles over 24 hours and lose a day in the process, you don’t want to be stuck in the house, adorable niece or no.

So this was my mental soundtrack for at least the two weeks running up to my sister’s visit:

Waddarewegonnado? Waddarewegonnado? I haven’t been out for a big night on the town since last July, just before confirming that I was pregnant. My older daughter is a good sport for travelling, but will she go to multiple museums? Will I let my sister down?

This mini-angst-crescendo was interrupted about 24 hours before the big arrival by my older daughter, who came up to me bedecked in her nightgown and clutching her toothbrush, and asked, with the gravitas worthy of Walter Cronkite, “Can we please give Auntie Debbie a tour of my crèche? I want to show her my classroom. It’s important.” It was as if she’d switched on a light when I realized that the tour we were going to give may not be featured in a Condé Nast spread, but it was a tour and it was authentically Melbourne.

So “my” Melbourne begins local, with a visit to Ceres, an environmental/educational park with an awesome cafe. Ceres is a localvore’s nirvana – they grow the produce used in the cafe and sell some at their twice weekly markets. I love it because it’s less than a block away from home and the cafe is next to the play area, and they have a scrumptious chai latte. My daughter loves it because she can climb trees and have a babyccino with a homemade chocolate frog.

Like the 24 bus line in Paris, which travels past the Latin Quarter, Notre Dame, and the Louvre all for the price of a normal ticket, or London’s 341 bus line, the 96 tram line here in Melbourne takes you from my doorstep (practically) through the heart of the city and out to St. Kilda Beach, on the bay, neatly bisecting the city’s inner suburbs from north to south. On the way through, you stop by the state parliament building, the Exhibition Building, and go through the central business district and the mix of Victorian, Federalist, Art Deco and modern buildings on Bourke Street. All for about AU$4, and you get the fun of eavesdropping on normal conversation on the way. My tram line.

We did fit in a visit to the National Gallery of Victoria, which had a special exhibition on Salvador Dali. I’d wondered how Surrealism and 4-year-olds mixed, and I’m still not sure; the older daughter was more intent on the kid’s area and the water wall on the outside, and the baby slept in our essential touring equipment – my sling. We also stopped by the Shrine of Remembrance, built originally to honor the fallen in World War I. But we spent far more time in parks around the city that have entered our personal pantheon with family names – The Park with the Maze, the New Park, the Park That We Visit When Mummy’s Running, the Park with the Butterfly Statue, the Park by the Beach, and the Park Where I Had to Use the Toilet but Nearly Couldn’t Find One.

While we didn’t sample Melbourne’s gustatory highlights in the fine dining sphere, we did walk to our local gelato store, GeloBar (hey, even in winter, we’re ice cream people), which is, apparently, rated by critics as one of the top spots for gelato. We kept postponing a trip to the open air Queen Victoria Market, then ran out of time after a leisurely last morning in that included a leisurely feed by the baby, but we went to the Preston Market, where I usually do all our shopping and which I personally believe you can get as many goodies as the Queen Vic, but usually at about half the price.

And yes, Auntie Debbie did get a tour of my older daughter’s crèche – complete with introductions to all teachers and the gift of a complementary work of art from her mixed media collection.

The moral of the story? Something along the lines of, wherever you go, there you are. Wherever you visit me, there I am and there is my city. If you’re lucky, my daughter will draw you a personalized map. Hope you like ice cream, parks and walking.

Rachel Alembakis is an expat American living in Melbourne with her husband and two daughters. She’s not sure whether she’s a cautionary or celebratory tale about what happens when you go to a bar and meet an Australian man.