Dangling your legs from Puffing Billy’s traditional open-side carriages; a truly iconic experience that cannot be found anywhere else in the world!

• Visiting the new Lakeside Visitor Centre, which features a modern café, dedicated gift shop and a museum filled with steam artifacts, including the railway’s first ever locomotive, 3A.

• From Monday 26 September to Sunday 2 October, passengers travelling to Lakeside Station will discover a free spring-themed arts and crafts activity zone at the Lakeside Visitor Centre for little ones to enjoy.

• Hiring a COG Bikes Australia bike from the Lakeside Station bike hire hub and cycling through the beautiful Eastern Dandenong Ranges Trail!

• Before that, grab yourself a pre-ordered picnic pack and find yourself a pretty spot to enjoy the Emerald Lake Park views from!

• Or take to the lake with Lakeside Paddleboats and their lovingly restored vintage paddleboats.

• And before you board the train for the return journey, make sure you stop in at the Emerald Lake Model Railway & Miniature World for a look at one of the largest model railways in Australia!

More info here.

We’ve got your Spring School Holidays sorted at Preston Market. Pop these free kids activities in your calendar. Animal Farm - Get up and close and cuddle up to your favourite small animals. Garden Making Workshop – Kid’s decorate a mini pot, plant a herb seed and take it home to grow. Spring-themed crafts - Kid’s make fun creations in the spirit of the new season.

More info here.

SciencePlay kids holiday classes make science experiences and conversations accessible and engaging for all brains. Come and get messy. Science Rules.

Classes are designed to encourage 4-12 yos to explore science in an accessible, tactile, hands-on way. Each class, run for an hour, has 3 experiments/explorations that foster creative thinking, problem solving, questioning, observing, hypothesising and all things STEM in a fun and MESSY way.

You only need to come to ONE class PER week as all classes WITHIN a week are the same (Week 2 is a DIFFERENT topic to Week 1). More info & bookings here.

Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox is coming to the Arts Centre Melbourne on the 20 – 24 September 2022. Mr Fox and his family, friends and foes are getting set to once again leap off the page (and all around the stage). Packed with Dahlicious mischief, hilarious mayhem and humongous belly laughs, this mind-blowing stage adaptation is the perfect theatrical adventure for the whole family. Follows sold out seasons across the country. Ages 5+. More info & tickets here.

Wander along the River Walk and discover a flow of ephemeral art pieces and partake in some Nature Play at Werribee Open Range Zoo this holidays.

Evoke wonder and take inspiration from works created from natural surrounding materials including stick sculptures and rock mandalas. Kids can create, learn and marvel in the beautiful surrounds of a natural wildlife corridor with the Nature Play area open from 11am to 2pm daily with a series of nature craft activities including: Fairy house village, Bird's nest, Sand play, Dirt play pebble art, Logs and steppers, Natural ‘pod’ huts, Stick tipi village, Ephemeral art/sculptures, Maze, Nature mandalas, Nature weaving frame and Golden-rayed Blue Butterfly experience. More info here.

It's time to meet the Dinosaurs! Come face to face with one of the most awe-inspiring creatures to ever walk the earth the Triceratops and meet baby Triceratops these school holidays.

Triceratops : Fate of the Dinosaurs is an immersive voyage into a lost world, where visitors will explore the landscapes of the Cretaceous and get to know the creatures that thrived there. Create your own 3D - Triceratops Mask, use Digital Technologies to make your own augmented reality Triceratops, and meet baby Triceratops up close! More info here.

Step back in time at Melbourne Zoo and indulge in some old-fashioned fun with classic games, plus catch Professor Pop on his Bubble Bike.

Get lost in a maze, leap to your heart’s content in hopscotch, master musical chairs or imitate your favourite animal in statues while learning about fighting extinction species. Professor Bubbles will have you in a fizz as he rides his tailor-made Bubble Bike down Main Street spreading a steam of bubbles in his wake. Activities run daily from 10am - 3pm and include Professor Pop and his Bubble Bike, Fighting extinction maze, Hopscotch, Sack races, Musical chairs, Statues, Tightrope walking, Kerplunk (pull out sticks), Memory game, Eye spy, Sensory scavenger hunt and Egg and spoon races. More info here.

Engage your senses to create, build and discover at Healesville Sanctuary this term break!

Let your imagination run wild and draw in sand tables, assemble your own temporary Gunyah, say "hello" to roaming Nature Rangers and burst some bubbles with a talented bubblelogist. The little ones can also enjoy a new sensory play space, specifically designed for 0-4 year olds. Join in on the following fun from 10:30am - 4pm daily: Sand table play, Gunyah making, Ephemeral art with sticks 'n' stones, Nature Ranger interactions, Roving bubbleologist and New sensory play space for 0-4 year olds. More info here.

An all-female cast of young acrobats combined with visuals of political cartoons by renowned cartoonist and feminist Judy Horacek come to life in this brand new show Girls with Altitude from Australia’s Flying Fruit Fly Circus from 16 – 17 September at Arts Centre Melbourne’s Playhouse Theatre.

Flips, tumbles and acrobatic elegance from dizzying heights will wow audiences in this high scale production featuring the world-class circus skills of the all-girl cast who range in age from 10 – 18 years old. More info & tickets here.

Dangerous and Deadly creatures of the ocean. Visitors can uncover interesting information about some of the ocean’s most fascinating but intimidating sea creatures via an all-new activity trail, fact finding, expert talks and a fun ‘What’s in the Box’ guessing game. Kids will discover the truth and bust some myths about SEA LIFE Melbourne’s incredible creatures including the venomous lionfish, the slippery moray eel and Pinjarra the enormous saltwater crocodile. Families can also learn about moon jellyfish, sea urchins, octopus and more.

SEA LIFE Melbourne has also launched a new Virtual Reality Shark Dive in time for the school holidays! For only $15, guests can immerse themselves in the natural habitat of some of the world’s largest sharks, including the apex predator tiger shark.

Guests visiting SEA LIFE Melbourne these school holidays can also check out the sub-Antarctic penguins, sharks, stingrays, seahorses and many more marine and freshwater creatures. More info here.

More than a million spring flowering bulbs are on show, including over 900,000 Tulips. Live entertainment, delicious foods and so much more! Find out more.

Experience on the giant screen the remarkable true story of three animal species rescued from the brink of extinction. Meet scientists, park rangers and students working to save endangered animals around the world.

Discover how California’s enchanting ‘Channel Island Fox’ is rescued from an invasion of Golden Eagles, the fastest recovery of a species in the history of animal conservation. Join the former hunters of one of the world’s most endangered primates, the Golden Monkey, now protecting them in the fabled mountains of China’s Yunnan Province. Witness the wondrous migration of the ‘Christmas Island Red Crab,’ and marvel at their recovery from a Crazy Yellow Ant infestation in one of the most successful bio-control experiments ever undertaken. Our review here. More info here.

The world-premiere Melbourne Winter Masterpieces® exhibition, The Picasso Century, charts the extraordinary career of Pablo Picasso in dialogue with the many artists, poets and intellectuals with whom he intercepted and interacted throughout the 20th century. Exclusively developed for the NGV by the Centre Pompidou and the Musée national Picasso-Paris, the exhibition features over 80 works by Picasso alongside over 100 works by more than 50 of his contemporaries, drawn from premier French national collections, as well as the NGV Collection. More info & tickets here.

Making Art: Imagine Everything is Real is the centre of creativity for children and their families at the NGV this winter. Coinciding with the premiere exhibition, The Picasso Century, Making Art features a range of hands-on activities and multimedia experiences inspired by methods of working invented by some of the leading European artists included in the exhibition. While learning about some of the leading artists of the twentieth century in Europe, children can make their own surprising works when they explore collage techniques, write poetry and play surrealist games and turn everyday materials into large-scale sculptures. FREE. More info here.

The Lume Melbourne. Experience the vibrant works of Vincent van Gogh at THE LUME Melbourne - Australia’s first permanent digital gallery. With vivid colours & intricate details, go on a multi-sensory tour as the Dutch masters world-renowned art comes to life all around you. Our review here.