We went to the Australia zoo on our way from Bagara Beach to Surfers Paradise. Their Animal Warriors show was something else. The Irwin's (the Crocadile hunters family) were the star's of the show. It was actually the boy's 5th birthday. The Croc's were cool, but I almost think the trainer birds were even more impressive. They flew all over the stadium landing right beside you, and then flying into and out of the stadium on command. The Australia zoo was more open than most US zoo's. The Koolaha's were right there in a tree beside you. The Kangaroo's and Wallabee's you could walk in their area with them. I think we have about 20 pictures of Shari feeding the Kangaroo's!
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Friday, December 5, 2008
Mon Repo
so after the turtle goes back to the ocean the researchers un-bury the eggs and count them and then safely put them back. Its all part of the routine to keep track of all the turtles and how many hatchlings hopefully make it back to the ocean and such. Some sea turtles or on the edge of extinction. So its all part of saving the turtles. Our turtle layed 58 eggs. This is a pic of the researcher taking the eggs out of the nest. It was hard to get a good pic since there were probably 60 people or so circled around the nest. I highly recommend this experience for anyone who is able to make it to Australia.
Mon Repo
while in Bargara Beach we visited Mon Repo Beach. It is a conservatory for all the turtles that come in at night to lay their eggs on the beach. Then in jan to march all the little turtles hatch and make their way to the ocean. There is no guarantee that you will see a turtle. But we got to see two. The first was a big loggerhead turtle. But she couldn't get settled and didn't find a good spot to lay her eggs and headed back to the ocean. We then got to see a flat back turtle instead. It was a great site seeing them lay their eggs and bury them in the sand. Unfortunately the turtles are sensitive to light so they only let you take photos after they have buried the eggs and are about to head back to the ocean. So here is a pic after that. This turtle was maybe about 3 feet long.
Bundaberg "Ginger" Beer
So near the Rum factory they also brew non alcoholic sodas. They are famous for their first soda "Ginger Beer". Basically ginger ale. Its all natural, so no sugars added or chemicals or anything like you might find in most our sodas. They had Apple, Peach, Cola, Ginger Ale, Root Beer, Burgungy Cream Soda, Lemon Lime. I think that is it. They had 6 or 8 that we tried. They have diet or regular in most the flavors.
Rum
About 5 or 10 minutes from Bargara Beach is the town of Bundaberg, famous for Bundaberg Rum. We visited the factory and bought a couple bottles of Rum. Yummy!
Koala Crossing
Well you won't see these in the States! This was on our drive from Sarina Beach to Bargara Beach.
Sarina Beach
The Beach was right outside our sliding porch door of our room. We had a visitor that walked along the beach with us.
Sarina Beach
On the way from Cairns heading toward or next destination, we stopped in a little beach side town called Sarina Beach and stayed at the Sarina Beach Motel. Nothing fancy but it was right on the beach and the owners were super nice people and chatted with us in the bar for a bit. The food was good too.
Play Boy Van
So in Australia they have lots of companies you can rent camper vans, as they call them and drive around from town to town and stay in caravan parks. Most are actually pretty nice and brian and I almost rented from one of them. However, we saw this one on the side of the road on our drive from Cairns heading south toward our next destination. Gee, i wonder what they are doing in THESE vans. HAHAHA
Bat Tree
So much for a Bat Cave! This is the type of tree the bats seem to hang out in that you see in the other photo.
Bats!!
So we wandered by this tree in Cairns Australia and thought they were birds at first, when in fact they were fruit bats! The tree was full of them! Harmless apparently. But close up, the are a good foot or so in size. All of the black spots in the photo are bats up in the tree.
Great Barrier Reef Diving
and one more dive photo. i believe these are some type of Angel Fish, and I am unsure of the one on the far right.
Giant Clam
this is a pic of a giant clam we saw diving the great barrier reef. you get an idea of how big it is against the hand in the picture. i don't have a professional dive camera, so some of the pics are pretty blue/green. but hey, thats the color of the water! still very beautiful. Brian bought me a waterproof housing for my birthday so we could take pics diving in Australia!
Great Barrier Reef Diving
Ok, so some of the pictures are out of order. But we havent had alot of computer time to post what we have wanted. So this is just another photo from our diving of the Great Barrier Reef on Nov 25th.
First Driving Day in Australia
This was our 3rd or 4th day in Australia up north in Cairns. So Nov 26th I believe. We got the rental car so we could start our journey down the coast to Sydney. Instead of calling it a "car rental", they call it "a car for hire". So here is Brian getting ready to drive our car on the opposite side of the street and on the opposite side of the car. It takes a little getting used to but its really not too bad. Since there is always two of us in the car we are always helping each other remember what lane to turn into and to be in. I think we may be confused when we get back in the states! :)
Thankgiving in Australia
We happened to be at Bargara Beach in Queensland Australia on the night of what would be the USA's Thanksgiving. So this is a picture of us having our Thanksgiving dinner. I (shari) had baramundi. Its a local fish and quite tasty. We shared a nice bottle of Shiraz that we picked out direct from their wine cellar. We ate at Kacy's Restaurant.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Cairns Aus Nov 24 036
On Nov 24th we went to a Japanese BBQ type place in Cairns and you basically have a hibatchi grill at your table and cook your own food. You order from several items on the menu and its all you can eat/cook for 90 min. We had pork ribs, chicken filets, beef loin, beef ribs, some sushi (which we didn't cook), grilled some veggies, and some shrimp. Needless to say there were things on the menu we had no interest in getting like tripe and tendons and who knows what. They had salads, and curry, and rice to. All the food we tried was very good. Service was a little slow, but it was pretty busy and we still got pleanty to eat.
Australia 081
This was the wine cellar at kacy's Bargara beach hotel/restaraunt. I know this will make Chris jealous :-)
Australia 033
There is nothing like white knuckle driving in a car that you've never driven before (Pugeot Aster), a town you've never been in (Townsville), the wrong side of the street, and a torential down pour that you can't see 5 feet in!
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Cairns Shark sighting
Our one and only Shark sighting during our dive trip. I believe it's a reef shark. was a ways away, but still cool to see one. Never did get to see a turtle. Hopefully we'll get to see one when we dive further down the coast.
Great barrier reef dive trip Cairns
Shari in a head to toe stinger suit. thought the suits were funny as hell. especially when you wore the mittens and hood. I could bring myself to put on the mittens and hood, but did wear the body suit. Diving was great. Dove 3 times. First dive was crystal clear, and each successive dive got a little cloudier. but still had probably 30 feet of visibility.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Cairns Aus Nov 24 027
There were two different raft trips you could do. We did the "extreme" trip. Mostly it meant that you didn't have to wait around for all the rest of the boats, and got to do some rock jumping, body surfing, and white water swims. This is a picture of me diving off a 15' or so rock. I did a back flip off the next rock that was about the same height. Highest I've ever done a back flip from. Miraculously I landed perfectly. Shari psyched herself out of doing the first jump, but manned up jumped the second one. Although the squeal she let out on the way down wasn't too manly...
Nov 24th. First full day in Cairns
Took a 2 hour bus ride to get to the Top of the Tully River. There is a Resivour that the rafting is done below. Leads to a fairly stable water lever, but it was on the low side when for us. Spent most of the day bouncing off of rocks. Was a great time though. Her is a picture of Shari after we got through one of the rapids.
First Day in Cairns
We got into cairns after 24+ hours in transit. It's amazing how much roomier the seats are on an international flight. Still doesn't mean it's comfortable sitting in them for 14 straight hours! Got delayed in Auckland because the plane was being cleaned after a group coming from somoa got food poisoning from their resort before they left. We were more than happy to give them all the time they needed to clean it up! By the time we got in the hotel it was about 4 pm. We headed out to walk around and go to dinner. Walked down the Esplenade for a while. Beach is really trashy in Cairns, but they have a great park with a lagoon type swimming pool. At dinner I got to try Kangaroo, Aligator, Baramundi (a fish), and Emu all in the same meal. Shari thought it was funning that I ate a bird, mamal, reptile, and fish all in the same meal :-)
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