Flying Foxes

Ok, this is what we saw, in the hundreds and hundreds of numbers, in the adjacent botanical park. They were sleeping and waking up here and there, some were harassing the sleeping ones. We hope to upload some video soon, and we hope to go back to see them actually taking off in flying monkey numbers to hunt bugs.

Tangalooma and Sydney

We are in Syndey now, leaving Saturday for home. Evidently we go through a time warp as we arrive 2 hours before we leave. That should be interesting. Wonder if the energy pack comes along with me.

It is am right now, will post more tonight if possible. Fruit bats that look like little wolves. Won't be sleeping tonight!

Last day on the Sunshine Coast

Here's Tyler petting a Koala. We actually drove through a Koala Crossing area today. Very cool to see that sign!!

Above that is a Wallaby, actually in the wild!!! A Wallaby is a mini kangaroo, basically. We were walking through a rainforest trail and spotted three of them. Very cool. We also saw holes that are the homes of giant worms, more than 2 feet in length. They come out at night, thankfully!!

Finally, here is the view from our Caloundra room. That is Bribie Island across the water, it is a huge sand dune about 30 miles long. Very cool, we took a boat there and walked over to the beach side.

and off to Tangalooma!!! South Pacific here we come!!! We spent our last day on the Sunshine Coast trying to find a beach with multi-colored sand dunes, but, alas, we failed. So, we ended up on a random beach and Tyler surfed, John attempted to surf, and he also gave Chloe and Guy their first surfing lessons. I sat in the sun and read book 2 of Dean Koontz' Frankenstein. Mom sat with me, even though she does not like to sit in the sun much. I will add a photo of Mom on the beach later tonight.

Hopefully I will post tomorrow from Tangalooma, but definitely by Thursday evening from Sydney! Cheers! Mary

FARM TOWN IS REAL (and hiding in Australia!)

FARM TOWN LIVES!! It is real and I found it!!! Whooo hooo my FaceBook friends, come to the Sunshine Coast in Australia and visit The Big Pineapple if you want to experience Farm Town for real. I was in heaven!!!

LOOK! A Pineapple==>

Kangaroo with a baby in the pouch

This is soooo cool. You don't get to see this often. A kangaroo with it's baby in the pouch. This was no tiny baby, either!!!

Hit and Miss

Today we went on a crap shoot. We decided to go to a waterfall to swim, and when we got there the walk to the top of it was easy, but to swim under it you had to jump down or climb down the rocky forest steep hill. I chose the hill as the people jumping were young Aussie guys. There was a rope swing down there but it was way high and John and I would not let Chloe or Guy do it. They cried (we let Tyler do it) and were miserable. So, we left. They sulked.

We went to a subtropical rainforest after that, and they cheered up because it was really cool under the canopy and we saw 3 wallabies. A wallaby is a cute little mini me kangaroo. We also heard some of the crazy bird calls, one sounds just like a baby crying and it was horrible. Tyler and I tried to imitate a sharp whistle from one, but it was too hard. The birds out here are crazy, they swoop at you and are loud and totally not afraid. I love them. There is one we keep trying to record in the morning, he sounds like he is playing a wood pipe instrument and from Close Encounters. I'll upload it if we get it!!!

Anyway, we tried to find a duckbilled platypus after that, on a boardwalk that sounded promising but we found nothing. It was sad. But we did walk a lot and had a nice day. The kids swam in the pool downstairs while I sat and read in the nice warm air with a cool breeze. Life is good!

No idea what is in store for tomorrow, but I did finally get a cold cut for lunch that I like. Hungarian Salami. YUM! Even their oreos taste different, and I am suddenly really picky about food.

G'day!

Underwater World!

Underwater World. Just the name brought me images of that awful Kevin Costner movie. But I figured an Aussie Underwater World would be a bit more fun. It was cute, more for younger kids but we did see a very nice sea lion/seal show. I finally “get” the difference between the two animals. Groucho the Australian seal pantsed a guy who fell in the water, which we enjoyed very much whether it was planned or not.

We did learn that you can be charged astronomical fees if you possess a living or dead goldfish, koi, or several other fish that are highly illegal here. They Aussies are quite serious about protecting their native fish, and invasive ones are NOT welcome!!!

We also went to a beach today, John and Tyler had high hopes of surfing. Unfortunately it was low tide and the waves were very sad. The kids swam, Nana and Tyler combed the beach for shells and coral, and John watched the kids in the water. Mary read a book!

It was not the most exciting day, but it was nice and I did enjoy sitting on the beach listening to all the people talking. Aussie accents are much more interesting than our own.

CRIKEY!!!!

Today we visited the Australia Zoo. For those who don’t know, that is Steve Irwin’s (The Crocodile Hunter) Zoo. It is also sponsored by Animal Planet, which is very cool to kids. As is Steve-O.

Where to start? How about we start when we arrived. Very unlike last year’s Disney adventure, there were at least 65 people on line to get into the zoo at opening time. Disney had to have a 1 hour pre-opening show for the 10,000 people waiting for the gates to open. We enjoyed the lack of crowds very much.

We expected to never be able to cover the entire park in one day, so we grabbed a few maps and started sprinting. The map was not available online so there was no way to pre-plan our route. After a very fast walk of 50 yards, we realized that we were almost halfway up the map, so we calmed down quite a bit.

It was the first realization that we were NOT in Kansas anymore. We checked out the infamous crocodile area, there are numerous pens with crocs in them. They all have names and stories, it’s pretty cool. We went to a tortoise talk time, and saw giant tortoises standing up when their shells were scratched, walking distances beyond our expectations, and eating all kinds of veggie matter. We also learned a ton of stuff about them. They have feeling all over the outside of their shell, they stand up to let lizards eat dead skin off their bodies, and that they never do ANYTHING quickly. But, if you leave your finger in front of them long enough, they will bite it off.

After the tortoise talk, he told us to go feed the elephants. So, like the skilled Disney-ites we were, we took off at full speed ahead of the crowd to get to the end of the park for elephant feeding time. We passed the wombats at 60 kilometers per hour (Aussies use metric), we passed through the huge aviary tent at 40 KPH, and came to the kangaroo area. Halfway through, we stopped and thought, “hey, it is much cooler to pet a kangaroo than to feed an elephant”. So we stopped and hung out in a field, sitting next to and petting kangaroos. Things calmed down to a screeching halt. And it was great. After we had our first fill of kangaroo time, we went to the Crocoseum for the big show.

It was nice to go see a show less than 20 minutes before it starts and get a good seat. They had snakes, one guy swam with a BIG python, birds were swooping over our heads and they showed us how to attract (or avoid) a crocodile. They were NOT 100% comfortable with the big croc, which was pretty cool. They were not acting, either. This guy was big and you never can tell when they will strike out at you. The main guy explained that the croc was a bit freaked out because they went and woke him up and took him out of his territory for the show. He asked, “what would you say if I came in to your bedroom and took your mate away”. To which John loudly answered “Good Luck”. He stumped an Aussie. The crowd laughed, I was mortified. So the Aussie said, “that was a good one”, and then “how about if I came into your home and took your beer” to which John said “you’re dead”. And he says I like being center of attention. But he was right, the Aussie guy said the croc was that mad. He wanted his beer back.

We brought on our own food and had a picnic, and we saw a fantastic tiger show (I am a big Calvin and Hobbes fan). We watched trainers show different methods of training tigers and have never seen tigers move that much, that fast or climb that high. Totally cool. We saw birds of prey in a show, fed the kangaroos, including joeys who were still milking their moms, and petted the butt of a koala. Koala bears are not wanting to be cuddled! We would vote for the kangaroo areas being the best of all.

But we did swing by the Tasmanian devil area for the second time on the way out, as the first time they were hiding and asleep. They were out and running around and even fought a bit for us. Very cute for deadly little critters.

Then I insisted we see the kookaburras last, which was the best time. We watched the top bird guy feeding rat pieces to the kookaburras and were treated to an amazing puffing up of the birds and the insane laughter shriek they let off. Several times! SO cool.

We had to hunt down the stores to buy souvenirs, but find them we did. This is the best animal center on earth, at least in my humble opinion. They inform you of so many interesting and meaningful facts about animals, and they make it fun. It’s kind of like if your neighbor had a bunch of animals and taught you about them.

It’s one more reason to visit Australia. Oh, and they are an equal opportunity employer. The bird guy went from starting to being in charge in 2 years!!! He is from Iowa. God Bless Australia!

Australian Outback Spectacular!!!

First night in Australia, Surfer's Paradise, the most commercial town in Australia, led us to the most commercial activity we could find. The Australian Outback SPECTACULAR!!!

Frankly, I was expecting it to be horrible after all the criticism I read about it online. We arrived, got our "outback hats". Hmmm, pretty nice, made of straw, not the paper hats we were betting on. We even got to be on the red team, much to Guy's joy and happiness. It was red vs. yellow, and we all know we don't wanna be yellow!!!

So we get to our seats, pretty cool, second row and it's stadium style so I won't miss one embarassingly cheesey moment. The waitress comes and offers me wine, beer or lemonade. I took the wine. It was fabulous! I might like this place!

I figured I should drink slowly as I am quite sure you only get one glass for the 70 bucks or so that we spent on each ticket. Salad is served, and it's 5 star quality!! I mentioned to the waitress that Guy is allergic to peanuts and tree nuts, and she swiftly snapped up Guy's salad and came back with a nut free, egg free salad. The first one simply might have been contaminated, but she did not want to take a chance. Guy actually even ate some of it.

So the show starts and it's pretty entertaining. There's the fun stuff, like the guy's riding horses standing up, and guys and chicks are racing in various ways and dancing australian country music (believe it or not, it's really good). I was thoroughly enjoying myself and then a guy comes around with MORE WINE. How great is this place???

Excellent steak and sides and Guy's dish again was brought without my asking, and the waitress placed it down and said, Egg and Nut free!!! An allergy mom's Heaven for sure. They DON'T forget, even though there are a thousand customers to serve. They brought him a special dessert as well since we got some Aussie dessert made entirely of eggs and sugar.

And in between those flashy, catchy entertaining moments, the MC guy was telling us stories about Aussie legends: The Man From Snowy River - I thought it was just a movie! It's real!! How they lived in the Outback, the history of their country. It was great. And it was patriotic.

I don't care how tacky commercial is. When you put together a bang up entertaining show like this one and add 3 rounds of drinks and a 5 star meal, you surpass commercial. You are The Bomb. And that is what the Australian Outback Spectacular is. it's The Bomb. And a damn good one at that!

The Spirit In The Sky

So much for a vacation being relaxing. I thought it was going to go great, got packed way on time, got to the airport, loaded the plane and even took off on time. We met up with Tyler in San Francisco and off we went to Australia.

We even got our own row, every other person in a seat. How often does that happen anymore!!! So, the flight leaves at 11:30 pm, Guy drops off to sleep almost immediately. Chloe does too, and Tyler spread out on the three seats in our row as I gave him my extra seat.

I even fell asleep for a while. Then I woke up, and on the giant screens all over the plane was a map with our plane over……nothing. There was ocean, ocean, ocean. It stated that we were 4,000 miles from the good old USA. And about 6 billion miles from Australia. Great progress, you say? Not me. All I thought about was if our airplane crashed, nobody was going to get there to pick us up until well after we were dinner for some giant sea creature.

That’s when the fun started. Yes, my favorite and yours, turbulence. It sounds like a disease, and really, it should be considered a plague. Our gigantic plane was so long that it bounced on the airstrip while driving. During turbulence, it bounced and felt like it was about to snap. I was the sole awake soul on the plane, and not a rosary was in sight. What’s a girl to do? DWELL. I dwelled on the idea that, if the plane snapped in half, we were in the back half and therefore would likely hit the water with much less force than the front half of the plane. Some of us might actually survive a 30,000 foot fall. Right? But then again, I admitted that perhaps falling that far might make us go SO deep into the ocean that we would not be able to swim back up. Ok, Mary – Dead. John – Dead. I can’t continue.

Then I consoled myself with the thought that perhaps we would all pass out from the rapid decline in height, and would never know we were dead until we floated up to Heaven, or somewhere else in my case. That might be livable.

But I found myself hoping that, if we were doomed, we would just suddenly blow up. That seemed to be the least aware I could be of impending death. So after a few hours of this cheerful, “we’re going on vacation to the land of deadliest creatures” imagery dancing through my head, I made a big decision. I ordered a vodka & tonic. This despite the fact that I was well aware they did not have any lime slices. It was a big move. I had my drink, and fell into a restless nap. I had some weird dreams, but I will share that story another day.

Just in case you were curious, I am writing this to you from Surfer’s Paradise in Australia. It’s on the Gold Coast. Surfer’s Paradise is considered to be the most crudely commercialistic location in all of Australia. So I am wondering, maybe THIS is Heaven and we just aren’t really aware of it yet. Makes you wonder, hmmmm?