Alexanders Outing

"Alexander the duck lives with his family in the beautiful Botanical Gardens in Sydney. His mother is bored and takes her ducklings for a walk, past the bottle tree, along Art Gallery Rd and across College St. They arrive at the park, but Alexander is not watching where he is going and ends up falling into a hole. How will he get out? A variety of people visiting the park help out and Alexander and his family are able to return safely home in time for tea. A lovely book for anyone familiar with Sydney and told in Allen’s usual great to read aloud style for young children."

Kirra Louise has a book by Pamela Allen called "Alexanders Outing". We were all excited to see where Alexander and his family went on their outing, so we set off on Thursday to visit Hyde Park (the place where Alexander gets stuck in the hole). We took took the train into the city, which Isabel particularly enjoyed. She was swinging around the poles in the train, trying to walk around everywhere. Just pretty much showing off her waddling skills.

Our exciting train ride ended at the Museum station, which incidentally has no lifts to the ground level, so we had to carry the stroller up the stairs to Hyde Park. Right outside our the station is the Anzac War Memorial that is being renovated for it's 75th Anniversary. We took a few photos in there and looked at some of the old war memorabilia (a pair of old boots that were worn during the battle of Long Tan) - pretty neat stuff.

Then we were off to the Archibald Fountain at the other end of the park. Kirra Louises' book failed to depict the fountain in its correct form, so when we arrived at the fountain, we were quite surprised to see statues of naked men and scary monsters being held by the naked men. It's a majestic fountain all the same, so we got a few photos in front of the Archibald Fountain too. I'm sure the Kuhns aren't used to having so many photos taken of them, one of the many delights of going on an excursion with a Petersen! (LOTS of photos).

From there it was only a hop, skip (much skipping from the girls) and a jump to the Sydney Opera House where more photos were taken. We managed to arrive at a particularly beautiful part of the afternoon when the sun was setting behind the Harbour Bridge. It made for some spectacular (or what would have been spectacular) photos.

Although at this point, you may be wondering if we had any sort of destination in mind, I assure you - there was food at the end of all the walking. That's what kept Isabel and me going. Dan and Robyn were kind enough to pay for me (and Isabel) to accompany them on the sunset dinner cruise. The great news is - Isabel, Sophie AND Kirra-Louise all ate for free! Isabel particularly liked the breadroll and her booster seat. She was able to sit at the table like a big girl. Unfortunately, she didn't really ACT like a big girl, so mummy had to take all the cutlery away from her place setting. Mummy also ended up clearing most of their side of the table of anything remotely interesting, because most of it would have ended up on the floor. Isabel was called a boy a couple of times by the waiter, but we didn't mind because they managed to give us six full meals for the price of three!

Everyone was really tired after we got back into the harbour, so we quickly made our way back on the train and home. Straight into our pyjamas, stopping only for a drink of milk and straight on to bed.