Melbourne - up and coming trip

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So we're off in to sunny Melbourne in a few weeks for a weekend away - yay! But...unlike pre kids where we have eaten at great restaraunts, shopped in richmond and gotten drunk in St Kilda, now we need some toddler friendly ideas.

We've been there maybe 5 times since the Midget was born and found a few child friendly restaraunts...the james squire brewery at docklands is pretty good and the Boathouse owned my Gary from Masterchef was nice and casual with a kiddies playground outside...any other ideas for nice toddler friendly restaraunts?

For some reason i've never been to Docklands stadium for a footy game...we always tend to go to the 'G' 'cause if youre in melbourne that IS where you have to go. So that will be one of our plans for the weekend although i've heard it can be pretty cold. Coming from Perth though Melb is pretty cold most of the time lol!

Other than that we're thinking of maybe going to the zoo. I have some memories of a tiny village or captain cooks cottage or something like that in the botanic gardens too. I need to look that up more.....

We have also booked a 2 bed apartment at the Mantra. It all looks nice and clean and standard complaints etc on the review pages. We normally stay at the Plum on Collins street which is an excellent location but to pick up the keys you have to go to this strange location about 5kms away and since i'll be arriving at night by myself with kids that is all too hard....like what to do i do with the kids and the taxi while i go inside for 5 min to pay and get the keys!?! So this is a bit more out of the way and over near the MCG but not much of a walk or tram ride from the city. damn , just realised i hope we cant hear the trainlines....hmmmmm

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