Another Belated Blog! (Friday, 7/25)

Where have we been and what have we been up to??

 

We left Lismore and New South Wales on Monday to go north to Hervey Bay and Fraser Island.  We took Regina (my cousin’s 14 year old daughter) with us and picked up Nikita from her mother (another one of my cousins) along the way.  As I pointed out to my uncle whom we visited while up at Hervey Bay, my father was traveling with four Windsor women – watch out for us!

 

Once we arrived at our accommodations in Hervey Bay, we were disappointed to discover that all the day tours for Tuesday to Fraser Island were booked.  No openings for us.  We decided instead to go on a whale watch cruise the next morning and spend the afternoon at the beach.  Mother nature had different plans for us, however.  We did get to enjoy the whale watching – despite the overcast weather on Tuesday.  There was only a few slight sprinklings of rain – the biggest complaint from the younger girls was the cold wind, but that was mostly the result of the boat going at high speeds to find the whales.  I had an absolutely wonderful time seeing the whales – and even managed to get a good photo of one right next to the boat!

After the whale watching cruise, however, we all wanted to go back and change into warm and dry clothing - and then didn’t really want to go to the beach when the rain began to come down a bit more frequently. 

We went to visit my Uncle Tony who lives up there that evening and then had a low key evening with some television viewing after dinner and then bed. 

 

Wednesday was another travel day for the five of us – going south from Hervey Bay to Beerwah, near Australia Zoo.  Yes, we decided that we would go see the home of the Crocodile Hunter at one point earlier in our trip – and when we thought about going on Friday, we discovered that Thursday was going to be Bindi Irwin’s tenth birthday and that all children got into the park for free.  Our plans quickly changed so that Thursday became the set-in-stone Australia Zoo day. 

Wednesday evening brought us my cousin Tracey for a little while – which was lovely to see her! 

Thursday (did I mention this was Australia Zoo day??) brought us rain.  Lots and lots of rain.  We managed, however, to have a really good time at Australia Zoo – which may have been influenced primarily from the last activity of our day being feeding and petting the kangaroos.  That morning though, before we’d even gone through the gates, the children had all gotten to pet a koala who was hanging out with a zoo keeper outside the front gate.  Lots of face painting and Crocodile Hunter excitement also occurred throughout the day – which seemed vaguely disturbing as there was an obvious lack of stingrays in any of the exhibits. 

There was – however – plenty of Bindi birthday cake. 

Alex and Regina tell me it was good – I was more in awe of the Bindi-wave and the Crikey wars – where they separated the crowds in the Crocoseum and challenged the sides to see who could yell Crikey the loudest.

We didn’t win.  I’m okay with that.

 

We left Beerwah this morning – Friday – on our way to the big camping weekend to celebrate my cousin Gregory’s 50^th birthday.  Because of the rain, though, plans were changed and instead of camping at Neurum Creek we are now pleasantly ensconced in a scouting dormitory in Burleigh Heads with 14 adults and 8 children – all my Australian family.