Crazy weather at Adventure Park, Geelong

It all started with a paella.

As we stood around waiting for it to be ready, we chatted about this and that.  About kids and schools and birthday parties.

At that point in the year, I was somewhat stressed about my son's birthday party expectations.  I was not in a mood to look after a gang of nine year olds, anywhere.  Especially when some of those said nine year olds hadn't been very kind to my boy that year.

That's why my ears pricked up when someone mentioned Adventure Park, near Geelong.  How, instead of a party, a child had an outing to Adventure Park with their family and how much they loved it. Hearing this mum rave about the fabulosity of Adventure Park, I came away with a potential ninth birthday celebration idea for my boy.

Several weeks later, as the end of the year drew near and the time for organising a party and inviting friends began running out (his birthday is in mid-January), I made an executive decision.  Adventure Park it was going to be!  With the added bonus of my son's best friend and his family included.

Little did I know that Adventure Park were planning a little adventuring of their own.  Quite accidentally, I came across a Twitter conversation about a blogger event at Adventure Park and while I hadn't been invited, I immediately piped up and suggested how happy I would be to blog about them in exchange for some tickets, especially as we had already planned to go.

Well, apparently it was meant to be.  The timing was perfect and I was very excited to receive some free tickets in the mail.

The day of our adventure dawned grey, humid and drizzly.  Yikes!

Not to be deterred and having been promised warmth and showers only by the weather gods in my phone, we set off on the two hour drive.

There was rain and there was sun and there were clouds and more rain.  The temperature fluctuated from 26C to 22C to 28C.  And this was only the drive!  Mountains of snacks were consumed, games were played, "how much longer?" was whined a few times.

And then we were there.  Our friend had snagged a table in the Lake Pavillion, so we had a base camp.  And we were under a solid roof.

After a quick change into swimsuits the boys were off like two little rockets!

This was what we saw:

Notice the ominous clouds?

Fun on the Jumping Jets before the rain

After about an hour of exploring, the storm broke.  There was lashing rain, there was thunder, there were cold winds!

Do you think the kids cared?  Not at all!  They were already wet as they played at Bonito's Bay.  There were water slides, there were water buckets, sprays, there was water everywhere.  What difference did a bit of sky water make?

Picture taken AFTER the storm 

It did, however, make a difference to me.  The rain was cold and unpleasantly harsh on my skin.  The wind was cold  and blustery, people began clearing off.  With great difficulty and a lot of shouting, I gathered my monsters and marched them off to base camp to dry and warm up.

As soon as we had lunch, the rain stopped and there was this:

Thus began an afternoon of fun, extreme wetness and, suprisingly, exercise.  Those paddle boats may look and feel easy to "drive", but three hours later, my legs could barely move....

And it's not just water fun.  There is an awesome Carousel, go-karts, electric cars, moon bikes, two mini-golf courses, a giant jumping pillow and a "train" ride around the park.

Our favourite was Bonito's Bay water park, which is right next to Tiny Tots, with the River Torrent Lazy River a close second.

I love that you can hire a private cabana for the day, where you sit and relax while your kids go mental in the water park.

There are plenty of shady areas with tables to set up your base camp and while we were lucky to go on a really quiet day, I could see just how much space there was for it to cater for busy days.

We brought our own food that day, but you can buy ready made food on site, including ice cream and slushies.  There also seemed to be plenty of parking.

I am told that on busy days, the queues for some rides can be quite long.  So, it definitely makes sense to come early, establish base camp and have heaps of fun before lunch.

As we were packing up to go home (nearly at closing time, which is 6.30 pm during summer holidays), I asked the birthday boy to show me how much fun he had.  This was his response:

Thank you to Adventure Park for our complimentary tickets and a fantastic day!  We will be back!

What about you?  What was your most recent adventure?

***************

If you'd like to see your logo here for the next 3 or 6 months check out my sponsorship packages for the Digital Parents Conference 2012: