Today we are in Brisbane. Alan has taken the kids to see the science center and I am here at an internet cafe without them. Yeah...
We could not camp last night, the Caravan park was full to bursting. It appears that we are back in CIVILIZATION. and lots of the cheap accomodation was booked out by the time we arrived in Brisbane last night. We are staying in a pretty nice place. We have a big room with two single beds and one double bed. Luckily for us we have a small fridge, a kettle and an ensuite bathroom. Breakfast is included. Tomorrow morning we are going to hook up with Alan's cousin Kevin for his son's birthday party. He lives about an hour south of here.
Catching up on the travels... We left the Capricorn Caves area and headed south. We went to a place called Mon Repos which is a turtle sanctuary/caravan park. We had a campsite right on the dunes (think Sandbanks by the sea with very few people...). There are apparently several species of sea turtles which nest on the beach at this park. We went out at sunset and walked along the beach and back, but didn't see anything. In the morning, Heather was making a sandcastle on the beach and a park ranger asked her if she wanted to see a baby turtle. Apparently a nest of Loggerhead turtles had emerged not 10m from our tent in the night. You could see all the little tracks leading down to the sea in the sand from the nest, so many you couldn't count them. The rangers check for any that get caught in the nest and release them every morning. She had found 4 and let Heather touch one of them. She then released them from the nest site and watched them as they walked to the sea. Jacob luckily made it back from his shower in time to see the last two as we cheered them on into the surf.
We left there and headed for Hervey Bay. Apparently in the spring (our fall) they have 3000 humpback whales which visit. I would really like to see that sometime. We were out of season for the whales but we visited a place called Fraser Island for the day. It is a huge sand island and a world heritage site. Last night I was trying to figure out how many world heritage sites we have visited on this trip. Lots is all I came up with. The whole island is only accessible by 4wd vehicles. All the roads are pure sand. The ones through the forest look a bit lethal to drive on, but the beach itself looked like a blast. We were in a 28 seater bus cum assault vehicle. Our driver looked like he really enjoyed his job. He really opened it up along the beach. We read in the paper that they are thinking of closing the beach to vehicles because of the shorebirds. Looking at all the tire tracks, I can see that the shorebirds would have a 1,000,000:1 chance against making it through an incubation period with the vehicles roaring up and down the beach. It would make it a lot less fun for the tourists and guides if they were only allowed to drive on inland roads. I wonder how it will turn out.
We took an extra option of going in a small plane which took off from and landed back on the beach after flying around the island for 15 minutes. Alan and I really enjoyed it, but the kids didn't. There was another family of 4 and us who took the plane. There were only 7 seats. I think they didn't want to send two planes up, so they offered us 2 for one if the kids sat in one seat. It all happened really quickly and we agreed. They were kind of squished and Heather didn't have a very good view out of the windows from where she sat. The kids were less than thrilled. Way less.
We had a buffet lunch and then went for a walk in the forest. It was only about 2.2 km along a creek but it was really peaceful. Jacob was again less than enthusiastic -- "we come by plane and boat and bus half way round the world for what - to walk on a TRAIL." It was not our day for cooperators. They had fun by the end when we got to swim for an hour in Lake Mackenzie on the island.
Yesterday we left Hervey Bay and had plans to stay the night in Noosa. It is a famously NICE place to be. Too many people think it is a nice place to be. It is a real tourist town. We ran away. I hope we have not run out of beaches that are unspoilt. We were kind of getting used to them. We have really enjoyed the whole camping thing here in Australia. It is nice to have our own rented car and to be able to go off the beaten track and stay in the national parks. I think if we had to stay in the "popular" places, it would not be nearly as enjoyable. I think we may be in for a bit of dissapointment. Looking at the map, there seems to be a lot more people in the areas we are going than the areas we have been but we will see. Alan seems to be getting used to driving on the left side of the road and hardly ever makes mistakes anymore!
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Driving on the left isn't so bad, I have to do it each time I visit England. But all you do there is follow the traffic. In Oz out in the open, it's probably more likely to drift back to the right with no one there.
Your package arrived, so I'll put it in the upstairs closet, in case I don't remember, you've been told...
Shadow and Donimo are both eating dry food, not canned. There has been a big scare involving 60 million cans of 'tainted' pet food, so none of the animals are on wet. No problems, and Shadow comes upstairs to eat. Albiet in the middle of the night when no one is around. Domino is now just a regular house cat, loafing around, sleeping in beds, meowing constantly when the food cupboard door is closed. Her and Rocky still have rip roaring cat fights in the middle of the night, but I think it's mostly in fun.
Spring has sort of arrived, but we could still have snow in April. Received a note from Sohkiak telling me that she is expecting you in a few weeks. Gray's roadhouse was demoloished yesterday. The builder and the city were at loggerheads over a number of issues, and the developer decided to just get a demo permit. The end of an era.
Not much else, we here at home to not lead the exciting life of the World Traveling Family (WTF)
TTFN R & M
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