We asked our children (aged 6, 7 and 9) what were their favourite things to do at the Bunya Mountains with kids after a long weekend there in March 2017. They talked and talked and talked and so I asked Master 9 to write down what they thought and this is his article with their words. A true reflection from 3 primary school aged kids about the beautiful Bunya Mountains.
Hi everyone – Mummy asked me to write down my favourite things to do at the Bunya Mountains with kids. She wants you to know about all the great things to do there for families with kids.
I wrote this on the ipad in the car on the 3 hour ride home and Mummy said she will put it up on the website tonight. So here are my and my cousins favourite things we did this weekend at the Bunya Mountains:
1. Feeding the Birds
There were so many birds that we saw this weekend – and lots of them came right up to our house to eat out of our hands. We are really glad mummy knew to bring some wild bird seed with us, because we know we are not allowed to feed birds bread or anything else.
We wrote a list of all the birds we saw: king parrots, satin bower birds, karawongs, tawny frog mouth owl, cookatoos, crimson rosellas, kookaburras, finches, wrens, magpies, bush turkeys and crows.
2. See interesting animals
As well as all the birds we saw lots of other amazing animals at the Bunya Mountains. The whole of the area where we stayed was covered with wallabies! They were not super friendly, so you couldn’t pat or feed them, but they were obviously used to people being around.
There were on our front lawn of our house as well as alongside the paths and roads where we walked. As well as LOTS of birds and wallabies, we also saw an echidna, a carpet snake and spiders.
3. Be amazed by all the different plants and trees
Most of the trees at the Bunya Mountains are the Bunya Pines. The trees are HUGE trees full of animal life which was really fun for us kids to try to spot different plants and animals that we had learned about at school. There are also so many amazing plants in the rainforest. The canopy is very high, which means the rainforest is very old.
4. Cool change from hot Brisbane
It has been soooo hot in Brisbane lately and it was really nice to get up to the mountain to enjoy the cooler air temperature! In the mornings we had to put on a jumper (or even a dressing gown) as it was a bit chilly! (That might have been because we got up around 6am though… but ssshhh… don’t tell mummy, she insists we need 12 hours sleep! Pffft!!!)
5. You can just be quiet and listen and watch!
Another thing that is really great about the Bunya Mountains for kids is that that there was no traffic where we stayed by our house. There was a road to our house, but there were hardly ever any cars. It made it really quiet for the grown ups – except when we were squealing and laughing and running around… but they said that they didn’t mind and that it was a ‘happy noise’.
I dont really know if that is true, but one of the best things to do at the Bunya Mountains is be really quiet and listen to the birds… if you are super quiet you can get a little bit closer to the wallabies (some had babies in their pouches) before they hop away from you!
6. Eat at Poppies Cafe
All three of us kids love to eat. One of our best things to do at the Bunya Mountains is take your kids to visit Poppies Cafe and try one of their delicious breakfasts. The grown ups had bacon and eggs and us kids all had the pancakes. If you ever go to the Bunya Mountains (and you are thinking about it, because you are reading this, right!?) you MUST have a meal at Poppies Cafe. The pancakes are the BEST!
7. Go on a bush walk
There are 500 metre bush walks as well as big long bush walks. We went on one this morning that was 4.4kms. We walked through the middle of a tree!! And we walked near a small waterfall and along a bridge and past all sorts of plants and moss and funghi… oh that reminds me of a joke my cousin told me … ‘Why did the mushroom get invited to the dance? Because we was a fun-guy…. ‘
8. Run around outside the house
What we really, really, really loved about the Bunya Mountains this weekend was being allowed to run around outside, pretty much wherever and whenever we wanted. Because there was hardly any traffic, (and the road was limited to 20kms per hour anyway) we just ran and played outside.
We just told the parents that we were going to play outside, and we were off…
9. Build a fire inside your house
Well…. we didn’t get to do this on the weekend, because it wasn’t cold enough. My uncle showed us the fireplace and promised that we could come back in June or July, when it was really cold so we could use it.
So now mum is looking at dates for the June/July school holidays..
10. Sleep in the beautiful homes with comfortable beds
Another one of our favourite things to do at the Bunya Mountains is to sleep in the BEAUTIFUL house that we had! (Ours was called ‘Sweet Inspirations’ and you can see it here) Perhaps the actual sleep part was more for the adults than us kids…. but we did really like the comfy beds too and thick doonas.
Our house could have EIGHT people sleep there in 3 bedrooms and one opened out directly on to the verandah… my aunty had a cup of tea and read her book on Saturday afternoon, while we ran around outside.
We actually had more than 10 things to do at the Bunya Mountains with kids, but mummy said 10 was enough for today. We have a very detailed review about the Bunya Mountains here and mummy is getting a video made of our weekend with ALL the things that we did so you can see even more reasons why it is such a magical place.
Use kids give it 10 out of 10 for fun holidays!
Thanks for reading my very first article for Families Magazine! 🙂 Master 9.
If you want to book your own amazing stay at the Bunya Mountains click here.
