Simon & Caroline's World Tour 07/08

After almost a solid day of driving yesterday we made the most of our van free day in Coffs Harbour today, starting with a visit to Pet Porpoise Pool. It's our second marine park in almost as many days but with the promise of seal and dolphin kisses we were hoping for a little more marine interaction this time. And we were not disappointed. The interaction began with a hairy, tickly kiss from Ellie the seal (Si looks like he his trying to show Ellie how it is done but really he was just avoiding a seal kiss for himself - chicken!). Next up was some dolphin kisses (these guys are well trained!) before we settled down to watch another dolphin show - lets see what these guys will do for some fish. It was possibly not as spectacular a show as Seaworld but it was less cheesy and probably more fun, especially since I mananged to volunteer myself to get up on the stage, hold a fish on the end of a pole and get splashed as one of the dolphins leaped out of the water to retrieve the fish.

After the show there was some dolphin belly rubbing and then onto the marine tank to feed fish, sharks and turtles. I managed to make a bit of a spectacle of myself again as I got nervous at the last second and dropped my fish in the water - a disgruntled shark then splashed me ferociously leaving me completely soaked - much to the amusement of everyone else - that will teach me! I felt a little safer feeding the fairy penguins.

After the excitement of Pet Porpoise Pool it was on to Coffs Harbour's other big attraction - the Big Banana. It was similar to the Big Pineapple in that there is not a lot to it, aside from the giant, yellow concrete banana of course! Si was feeling a little traumatised by all the banana paraphenalia and especially by the many banana themed foods in the cafe. So the only way to put a smile on his face was to have several goes on the toboggan ride, which involved whizzing down the hillside and carreening around corners (I was advised to ease up on the brake after my first go!). A perfect end to another action packed day. And another day to be grateful that we are here having fun rather than back home working. Especially since St J's had the inspectors in today - hope it went well guys (rather you than me!! ;)