As I mentioned in my previous post we Aussies do like to take advantage of the Christmas/New Year break to catch up with far flung family. In my families case we have all the hotspots in South East Queensland covered.
My eldest a son lives with his partner and 4 children at the Gold Coast, my youngest daugter lives with her partner and 2 children in Brisbane and my middle daugher with her partner and 6 children on the Sunshine Coast about 10 minutes down the road from me.
Because we as a family we are committed to avoiding the hideous traffic chaos that occurs due to the mass migration of the populace on the M1 from Brisbane to either the Gold Coast or the Sunshine Coast during the summer our family travel at less popular hours to avoid the insanity and keep the trips way shorter.
But this can mean a slightly later start on that first morning and while we are sun savvy and want to avoid the hottest part of the day, we still want to have some fun and keep cool and avoid the tourism hot spots and crowds.
Master A and Master L try to plug up the squirts coming from the lizard! Not quite sure what just happened to Master 7...
So with a relatively large extended family all in need of a cool off mid to late morning we headed to our local council pool, which fortunately is well equipped for our particular needs.
With 4 adults and 10 children (on this trip we were down 3 adults and 2 children) with a 10 metre children's pool with a little toadstool waterfall and a water squirting lizard all undercover, a 25 metre lap pool and a heated covered rock enclosed pool (which is intended for therapy but available for everyone) and plenty of shady places for mums, dads, nans and pops to sit it was pretty much perfect.
When we arrived we were thrilled to see only about 6 other people in the entire complex, however with minutes of our arrival (the amount of time it took 4 adults to apply sunscreen to 10 children) we had completely taken over the place.
Yes folks all of the adults and children in the photo are family members...and I missed a few!
The kids pool was totally devoid of kids on our arrival, but soon there was less and less water mixed with more and more children as my 10 grandchildren poured in.
Any thoughts I had about building a pool at home will have to be revised, I don’t think even a 25 metre pool is going to hold this lot when they’re grown! And we were 5 short today… I'll have to wait for that lotto win and get a much bigger pool!
Aunty T and Uncle J soon joined the kids in the pool while 
The older and stronger swimmers went in small groups with an adult into the 25 metre pool and splashed about more vigorously and at various times during the day, some or all of the family ended up in the heated therapy pool. But not for long it was a bit too warm.
Because we live in a small country town in the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast it was particularly quiet this day, we pretty much had the place to ourselves for most of the day and the kids had a great time.
We had come prepared with snacks and drinks because they eat like a plague of locusts and when they finally nibbled there way through the food we had and the littlest ones were exhausted we wondered back to
Miss 1 before she got tired and grumpy and Master 7 looking after his baby sister...
Council pools used to be so boring and unattractive, but now they have great features that the kids all love and it’s not too terrible for the parents and the grandparents to sit in the shade in a comfy seat and watch the kids either.
What the hell am I thinking… I better keep this quiet or everyone will be down at their local pool! Goodness knows with the size of our family we really don’t need the competition…
Have a great summer!
