We’ve been living in Western Australia but had a dream to move to Queensland.
The first opportunity came two months ago and we have moved over.
My daughter is 4 years old and my son was 2,5 at the time.
We have decided, that instead of flying the half of the family to Brisbane, we all going for the long ride with daddy. It took 5 days to reach our final destination: Toowoomba city in Queensland.
We knew that this trip will take about 5 days, and I took special preparations to have enough entertainment for the kids. Our portable video player broke a few months earlier so watching DVD with them wasn’t an option. I have searched for and found some good ideas.
Packed a few picture books, their toy cars, teddy bears, Angie’s doll. I bought two coloring books and color pencils, I found a sticky foam, do it yourself, zoo picture, and two wooden puzzle set, one with the ABC and one for the numbers. The wooden puzzles were a hit. They both loved them.
They especially enjoyed to take the puzzles apart to do it again, once every piece were in place.
Whenever we have stopped for lunch at a place that had a playground, we give our kids a half an hour to enjoy playing outside and move their bodies.
When we were out of the city, we laid down the back raw and created a large playpen in the boot of our Ford Escape. They were able to play or sleep if they wanted to. This is a choice we made to make the trip easier on them.
Apples and nuts came very handy, so we got new supplies whenever we could. Water is paramount, and if I could go back in time, I would make sure that we have a large supply of bottled water, as it is very expensive to buy at the gas stations.
My hubby had the great idea to put the potty in the car in case of emergency, and sure it was a life saver a few times when we couldn’t stop right away.
How frequently or for how long you want to stop depends on how fast you want to get where you going to and how frequently a sudden need arise. But travelling with kids will take a lot more stops even if these are short.
I hope you can pick out some ideas to make your travel as much fun as possible.
by Etelka Koshemakin
