Ideas for a 2nd birthday please!

Hi ladies,

Well, I struggled last year with my DS's 1st birthday party ideas, and here I am again struggling with ideas for his 2nd birthday. The thing is, I am so useless and hopeless with organizing birthday parties. Last year I had the help from my best friend who has 2 kids (6 & 8), so plenty of experience there. We had a BBQ in a nature park (like a mini zoo), and it was quite good, except I ended up a stress head for the entire afternoon, I don't remember half of it! So I am looking for ideas again for DS's mid March birthday party. I've got about 20 adults and 10 kids coming, ages from 6 months to 12 years. I'm reluctant to have it at home, as it's only a 2 bedroom unit, so if the weather is crap, I'll struggle to have everyone inside.

TIA.

I'm not great at dreaming up ideas for parties either...but do you have a room at a community centre or similar nearby that you could hire? We did this for Moo's 1st birthday as we didn't want everyone at our house and being August the weather was unpredictable. We also hired play equipment for the kiddies and just set it up in the huge room, kids loved it!

ETA - just noticed that you're in Melbourne...is your little boy into trains? The Altona Miniature Railway is available for birthday parties. I've never actually been there myself but just now noticed while looking for things to do that they take private bookings.

I'm heading over to help, my dream job is as a party planner LOL

Could you have it at one of DS's grandparents house instead perhaps? Any family members with a decent sized back yard?
As for an external venue - a playcafe - but a toddler friendly one?
Not sure where you live in Vic but last time we were there we went to the Diamond Valley Railway and it was awesome - I'm pretty sure you can have parties there too (a BBQ or Picnic - an easy picnic is cold chicken, salads and sandwiches as you can do it all pre-party rather than worrying about cooking a BBQ, much easier and more relaxing as hosts
Botanic Gardens? Aquarium?
Find a great playground with shelter/toilets/fenced in playground - I'm sure the Melb locals could fill a thread with playground recommendations :)
We have a plaster fun house here - there would no doubt be an equivilent (eg an art type of place)
Or a kids circus - sadly a place called Triskills just closed here, but DSs childcare used to take excursions there all the time, lots of trampolines, foam pits, balance beams, swings etc - is there a similar place?

Thanks so much Hestia and Naomi, I love the idea of a party with the trains! DS loves Thomas, I'll look into that!!! Off to investigate :)