Entertaining the toddler in Sydney

Our Sydney trip is coming to an end on Sunday (thank GOD!) So I thought I'd plan a day jam packed with toddler friendly Sydney stuff to do that wouldn't send me bonkers. Minus a quick skip over to the State Library of NSW to see the Rennie Ellis "Kings Cross" exhibition for me during the  Toddler's nap time that is.

Confession time? I haven't actually been to a museum since Melbourne had a Museum station. Isn't that shameful? I honestly don't think i've stepped into one since primary school. So I was keen to take the Toddler to Sydney Museum's Tyrannosaurs exhibition as she is obsessed with dinosaurs at the moment and I thought I could also spark an interest in other things such as the skeleton room or the birds and insects room. But no, she found these all too scary. Unlike, you know, the actual supposedly scary T-Rex which she loved. Sigh.

She insists on sitting on the backseat of the bus now. Despite us having to leave the stroller in the disability/pram section. Though she thinks going on the bus is an attraction in itself.

The exhibition, while fantastic for older kids, was somewhat lost on her. All she was interested in doing was racing through the venue until she found the biggest pile of bones they had and scaring herself silly.

Not for the faint of heart.

Credit to Sydney Museum they had an amazing kids activity area that kept her interest for over an hour with lots of things to look at and explore. Puzzles, animals, books, dress ups, figurines, crafts, and so on. And all for free.


After this she passed out long enough for me to sneak into the State Library of NSW. Then it was onto the Botanical Gardens where I ordered myself an extra strong coffee and waited for her to wake up knowing her first and only request would be for "chippies ... and sauce."


Even though it was supposedly only 27 degrees today if felt a lot hotter walking around in the bright sun.

$4.50 for a SPLICE?!?!?! Surely that must have been a mistake, but I wasn't in the mood to challenge it.

I did promise her there'd be a Choo Choo Train in the Botanical Gardens. She couldn't wrap her head around why the hell we were wasting our time in a big bloody park with no play equipment but many "tiny forests" as she called them. So, taking one for the team, I gave up my thorough walk through the gardens and instead hopped aboard this contraption:

Unfortunately it didn't make being there any more interesting. Big deal, she must have thought, more plants, more trees, whoop di whoop.

First ever "farm" in Australia.

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Me if I was a tree. Bloated and retaining water.

Obligatory tourist shot. "The big bridge" she was not impressed by.

Everyone, including the Toddler, was obsessed with the capsized boat in front of us and the diver that had to keep diving under.

To cap off the day we ended up at the nice enclosed playground at Maroubra Beach where she learned to scale the rope ladder, slide down the pole much to my horror, and jump off the "sunken ship" after seeing an older boy do it. Eeep. She's growing up before my eyes!