Deciding on a travel destination and then finding activities that engage children aged 17 down to 6 years old is challenging. And so, we decided to visit the Gold Coast in 2015, and booked ourselves a farmstay and a visit to a theme park to satisfy all.
In The Lim Tribe Goes Down Under, I had written about the first time we went to Australia as a family of 9 in October 2012. This was after Sarah’s PSLE. Back then, we were blessed with a free stay at a fully furnished apartment as well as discounted SQ air tickets because it was off-peak season.
We had a lovely time and had wanted to return with the family again. But we also had, by now, three teenagers who were not so keen on farm stays and animal-petting types of holidays. At that point, we had seven children aged 17 down to 6. It was (and still is) hard to find activities that are fun for everyone.
Gold Coast 2015 (6th – 17th October)
So I decided to explore going to Gold Coast, Australia, home of theme parks. At that point in time, Scoot started offering direct flights to Gold Coast. Score!
If not for Scoot, we would not have considered going to Gold Coast since each plane ticket would easily have cost us over $1,000 per person. And to further save, we only paid for two of us to have checked-in luggage. This is when travelling light is really helpful.
But while airfare is settled, I still had to find affordable accommodations that could fit all nine of us. Hotels and motels are strict about the number of people sleeping in one room for fire safety reasons. So I had to hunt high and low for apartments or houses that were available for rent.
Read: expensive! This was before the days of Airbnb.
But What to Do at Gold Coast?
But even if we could find decent accommodations, I had to decide what activities we were going to do in Gold Coast. I say “I” as I had been tasked to be the planner and activity manager, as always. So, while the tickets were booked and secured, our accommodations and itinerary were not settled.
In order not to bore the three teens to death with farm stays, animal petting, weekend market trawling and admiring scenery type of activities, I explored the different theme parks available.
I also hunted around for DEALS. Because with a family of nine, costs add up quickly. I needed as many deals and coupons as I could get to reduce our costs.
A God-led Itinerary and Online Deals
So as I waited for my MOE-P4 exam taker to finish up her exams, I sat at Starbucks and surfed the net, jotting down all possible places of interest and checked out if deals offered were for real or scams.
Truly, by God’s leading and guidance, I managed to sort out our itinerary as well as secured the deals that could be secured. When I shared it with the family, they were all happy with it.
A Farm Stay, a Theme Park & Weekend Markets
So what did we settle on?
To allow the younger ones to experience farm stays and all things animals, we chose a farm stay with Lillydale Farmstay, which has sadly been sold off and closed up. They had a Spring promotion (God-sent I tell you) going on that gave us a discount for booking a minimum of three nights. The promotion included animal petting, collection of eggs, feeding of animals as well as a free on-site wildlife animal show right at the farm.
So I decided that we would stay three nights at Lillydale, and then drive off to stay at The Gold Coast Holiday Park site for the remaining 7 nights. This site was a mere 5-minute drive from Dreamworld as well as a short 30-minute drive to the weekend markets and Wildlife Currumbin Sanctuary that I planned to visit. This was another God-send as until today I have no idea how I managed to find it.
But First, PSLE
As with most of our trips so far, we have had to plod through PSLE before we could get to enjoy our family vacation.
I was very grateful that Esther was able to concentrate on doing her best for the exams despite the mounting excitement over the trip by the other siblings.
2015 was also the year we had one of the worst haze situations in Singapore. At one point, PSI levels hovered between 200 to 300. This was bad news for us because our grand plan was to leave the night of the last PSLE paper on 6th October, as we do not take Higher Chinese. This meant that once Esther was done with the Science paper at 10am, we would head home, pack and check-in at Changi Airport at 8:25pm.
However, due to the extreme haze situation, there was talk of possibly postponing PSLE! MOE had already postponed one O-Levels paper in view of the haze so the possibility of postponing PSLE seemed possible. Eeks! We cannot afford to have PSLE postponed.
Red-eye Flight
Thankfully, it was not. We were all looking forward to the clean, fresh and crisp air after so many months of haze-filled air.
Flying Scoot makes me glad that we are small-sized. The seats are hard and the leg space, limited. And unless one paid, there is no inflight entertainment. However, choosing a red-eye flight helped. The children mostly dozed off. I definitely did. Planning for a holiday is exhausting, you know?
Once we landed, we picked up our pre-booked Toyota Hiace 12-passenger van at the airport. We had booked the same model when we visited Perth in 2012. It is the only van that fits our family of 9 plus luggage comfortably.
We headed off to Lillydale. It was a two-hour long drive.
Lillydale Farmstay (7th – 10th October)
The house we booked was called the Eco Cabin. It had 2-bedrooms with a mix of king and queen-sized beds and two sofa beds. It was fully furnished with an oven, stove and lots of pots and pans, ideal for a large family. And they had two bathrooms which use recycled water from the taps to flush the toilets. So cool! I wish I had taken photos.
Each day, the younger kids had a blast trying to find and collect eggs, feeding the goats and chickens, milking the cow, riding the ponies and brushing them, as well as playing on the trampoline and swing set.
Some of us tried throwing a real boomerang and whip-cracking. We even had a game of monkey and football outside the house. It was so, so lovely.
A Private Wildlife Show
But the big surprise was when we were told that there would be an on-site wildlife show at the front porch of the house! We thought it was for everyone who booked a room at the farm. But nope, it was just for us! We got up close and personal with the native animals of Australia.
Those 3 full days (we left on the morning of the 10th) at Lillydale was an amazing experience for all. We are truly sad that we can’t ever return to Lillydale for another stay.
Farm-fresh Bacon & Eggs
At the farm, we had farm-fresh bacon and eggs (both from the farm). I did not take any photos of this delicious breakfast meal (or any of our meals sadly). And I must say that cooking in the cool weather is nothing like cooking in Singapore.
There was also a quaint little shop called Butch’s Café in Rathdowney. It sold lovely pancakes and even more delicious cappuccino. I still remember it, 4 years on! Pleasant memories indeed. Pity that it has also closed down.
Gold Coast Holiday Park (10th – 17th October)
Our next stop after Lillydale was at Gold Coast Holiday Park. It is an interesting place – to us. First of all, it was huge We got lost twice when we returned late at night. It has permanent houses onsite (cabins/villas/bungalows) as well as places for campervans to park, with kitchens and laundry rooms.
It also had a bouncy castle (jumping pillow) and a pool. We did try to play in the pool but the water was freezing to us tropical folks. We lasted only a very short while before heading back to the house. There were lots of locals at this site.
3-Bedroom Family Cabin
The three-bedroom Family Cabin was airy and clean. One room had two double bunk beds (youngest four slept in here). Another room had one queen-sized bed and one double bunk bed (older three slept in here) and one queen-sized bed in the third room.
It was also fully furnished with a washer and dryer IN the house. This helped tremendously in keeping our laundry under control. At Lillydale, we sent a load of clothes to be washed and dried the day before we left the farm. We had to pay for this service ($15/load) though.
Food
The motel was also near Coles supermarket so we would drive out and buy supplies and food to cook and eat at home as well as to bring along to the theme parks, saving us a ton of money!
Yes, it was tiring but worth it. We had foolishly eaten at the park on our first day there but not only was the food expensive, but the food (hotdogs, pizza and burgers) was not palatable to us. We also brought along water that we filtered through our tabletop Brita water filter as we are not fans of soft drinks.
Weekend Markets (10th & 11th October)
Since we did not want to jostle with the weekend crowd at the theme park, I planned for us to explore the weekend markets, Carrara Market and Coolangatha Market instead.
I love visiting and walking through these weekend markets even if I end up buying nothing. I just like the atmosphere there as we walked up and down and see the wares offered. Coolangatha Market was especially nice as it was held along the beach. Yes, the food was expensive but how often do we get to do this?
Skypoint Observation Deck (11th October)
Since the purchase of the theme park tickets via Experience Oz included entry into SkyPoint Observation Deck, we made a trip to Surfers Paradise on Sunday afternoon, after walking through Coolangatha Market. It was a sight to behold indeed. Up at the observation deck, we had a bird’s eye view of the city.
Wildlife Currumbin Sanctuary & Tree Top Challenge (14th October)
I slotted in a visit to the Wildlife Currumbin Sanctuary between our visits to Dreamworld to give us adults a break.
But, honestly, if I had known we were getting a personal wildlife show put out for us at Lillydale Farmstay, I probably would not have paid for this. While we did get to pet a few kangaroos and an emu and watched an interesting crocodile show, it wasn’t worth the money. Meanwhile, the older ones had fun trying out the Tree Top Challenges located inside the Sanctuary because they had enough of animals. Lol!
Dreamworld (12th – 13th October & 15th – 16th October)
We, or rather, I had decided on visiting Dreamworld instead of Movie World because we aren’t that crazy about movie characters. Also, from what I saw, Dreamworld offered better value for our money.
Theme Park Tips
Besides bringing your own food and water to the park (we rented a big locker to stash our food and belongings in there while we wandered around the park), always surf and check around for discounted tickets or package deals for theme parks.
If you are planning to spend more than two or three days at the park, often, an annual pass ticket is cheaper. In our case, I found Experience Oz which had a 7-Day Holiday World Pass offer. This HOT DEAL offered “7 days for less than the price of 1” deal. And the price included entry into Dreamword, WhiteWater World and SkyPoint Observation Deck.
No, we were not going to spend 7 days there, just 4. And it was still a great deal especially since we lived just a 5-minute drive away.
And so, we spent 4 days at Dreamworld. The kids had great fun, even trying out the freezing waters in WhiteWater World while the adults were thoroughly exhausted.
Memories
So many memories made. As I looked through the photos and videos for this post the children oohed and ahhed and there were lots of “I remember this!”
Family memories are priceless indeed. Hopefully, we will be back again someday and make more beautiful memories with the family.
Places & Companies Mentioned
(no affiliation)
Experience Oz
Wildlife Currumbin Sanctuary
Tree Top Challenge
Dreamworld Theme Park
WhiteWater World
SkyPoint Observation Deck
Carrara Market
Coolangatta Market
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