February 2008 – Page 3 – Simon & Caroline's World Tour 07/08

Simon’s got some competition!

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!! 😉

Ten days in ten hours

Like a quick rewind of our journey north into Queensland, the drive south today covered the same distance as we managed in ten days before. Of course this time there were fewer detours and stop offs, save Lennox Heads, who could resist another dip in the tea tree lake? Well, Caroline for one!
Now, we’ve had a bit of rain over the past few days, but none quite as impressive as seeing this storm lurking over the hills as we had a wee stop. With flashes of lightning over the river, the clouds passed over accompanied by fierce winds and a noticeable drop in temperature followed by buckets of rain. As we were driving along there was a flash and the whip crack of a strike about a hundred metres away, now being a good physicist I know a car is the safest place to be, still scary though!

Theme park with a porpoise

For the second and final Gold Coast theme park for our trip we chose Sea World. We limited ourselves mainly because they’re expensive but also to avoid extreme theme fatigue.
Sea World not only has a marine wildlife conservation side, but also manages to squeeze in rollercoasters and shows! With the Seal Detectives, Water Skiers (who accidentally fell off a few times, which made the show much better), and of course the jumping, splashing, human-transporting dolphins. They try to sell the dolphin show as mankind and dolphins living in harmony, I think it should be sold along the lines of “it’s amazing what a dolphin will do for a fish”.

Very wet and a wee bit wild!

Today’s Gold Coast excitement took us to Wet n Wild water park. It turned out to be the best place to be as the occassional torrential downpours didn’t hinder our fun – we were going to spend the whole day being soaked anyway!
As you can imagine (especially if you read the blog / saw the video about the pool slide) Si was in his element. As for myself, after a bit of a nervous start (my thumb is still not completely recovered from that same pool slide!) I too had a ball. The best ride by far, called the tornado, involved sitting on an inflatable ring and being thrown down an almost verticle drop, with almost definitely some freefall, to then spin around a giant cone – all the while being sprayed with good old H2O, of course!
Simon managed to go on all rides, even an oversize version of the campsite slide. The difference being it was about 30m high, straight, and involved a drop as steep as can be, he even claimed to take off as he dropped!
With all that fun, plus all the stair climbing to get to that fun, we are two very tired cats who will sleep well tonight (even in our cramped, lumpy campervan bed!)

Getting all tropical..

Tropical cyclone that is though! With concern for the waterproof-ness of the van through the night, we awoke to a stream, or rather white water rapids, beneath the van (good job we’re not in a tent!) Seeking refuge in a multi-storey car park, and the dry cool air of a shopping centre, we rode the storm out before driving on to Surfers Paradise.
I’m sure it was once a surfer’s paradise, but it’s now more of a Blackpool on steroids, or a sleepy Vegas with fewer casinos. It doesn’t do badly though, $2.2bn turnover, 200 high rises, and the tallest residential building in the world. All this learnt from our trip on the amphibious duck bus, which takes a little paddle up the river as part of the tour. They also mentioned that Schoolies week (30,000 17 year olds descend on the place to cause havoc) brings in $60mn, and that’s why they put up with it, doesn’t sound worth it to me!
I’m off to guard my wallet, there’s too many businesses keen to relieve you of cash around here!

Weeeeeeee!!

Fraser Island isn’t the only sand island in town, just further south, west of Brisbane lies Moreton Island, so our wee treat was a day sail. Incidentally, it was first seen by Captain Cook who thought it was part of the mainland, as he did with Fraser Island – I reckon he must have been going faster than we are!
With a grey start to the day, we weren’t holding out for much, we did get in a good bit of snorkelling around some wrecks, but alas the sand boarding was rained off. So, it was time to try the jet piloting, essentially a inflatable disc towed behind a fast moving vessel (piloted by skipper Joe who doesn’t like going in straight lines, especially if you call him a sissy!) Much fun ensued, as you might be able to make out from Caroline’s expression!
The yacht, “Solo”, was built in 1955, holds the record for winning the most Sydney-Hobart races (from Boxing day, if you’ve been paying attention 😉 ), has been solo circumnavigated around Australia twice, and the world to boot. It was then used as an Antartic research vessel before being the first Whitsundays tourist yacht before moving to Moreton Bay. So we’ve been on a bit of floating Aussie history, still feels like Howard’s Way to me though…

Top that!

You’ve got to love this country, we’ve gone from hand feeding elephants at Australia zoo, to swimming with little turtles on Fraser Island, then watching a loggerhead turtle nesting, onto saving a baby turtle the next morning. What could top that? Well hand feeding a wild dolphin would certainly come close. Mystique is the 4th generation wild dolphin (indo-pacific humpback) to come into Tin Can Bay every morning at 8am for a bit of a feed. He gave me a big Flipper like grin and gobbled up my fish. Sweet.