Queensland

We have been in queensland for a few weeks now and it is getting hotter everyday. There is a lot of driving inbetween towns here. We have had to curtail our ocean swimming due to the jellyfish which could be deadly. We were in Bundeburg for a day and saw a Loggerhead turtle lay 158 eggs on the beach. They insisted that the large crowds of people waching don't disturb them. Since they lay their eggs at night, we had to sit around a ranger station for a few hours and wait until a ranger saw one come up on shore and we went down in a group. We did a day trip to three different islands in the Whitsundays. We went to Daydream Island, Whithaven beach, and one more where we did some snorkeling whose name I can't remember. We sold our surfboards for a net loss of only about $150 in the town of Agnes Waters. This is the northern most point you can surf on the Australian east coast before the Great Barrier Reef gets in the way. We did a 3 day trip to Magnetic Island off the coast of Townsville. There was good snorkeling there also.

Next we are headed to the Undara Lava Tubes to see some giant caves that were formed by large flowing lava streams millions of years ago. Then hopefully we can get most of our money back for the car in Cairns and off to New Zealand.

Queensland Pic update 2

Most people pay $14 to hold a Koala. Git thought the Koala's smarter burrowing cousin, the hairy nose wombat, was a better creature to hold.




















We visited the bundaberg rum distillery. We got to taste many of their products and needless to say, we were feeling pretty good afterword.















Snorkeling at the Whitsunday Islands. It is not quite the Great Barrier reef but it is still very impressive.














When the groups go out snorkeling, they throw fish food overboard so that heaps of fish come to the surface to swim with us.

More Pics from Queensland

Nicole caught a fish at Hervey Bay, Queensland.















Bloo caught the same type of fish. After catching it we learned that these are poisonous pufferfish. A local told us that he knew somebody who caught one of these, ate it, and died two hours later. Funny how none of the tackle shops warned us about this.















This guy was not very concerned about the 3000 psi that these freshwater crocs bite down with. He cleared up some of the rumors about crocs such as: they can run fast, they kill their prey by the death roll, and running in a zig zag will help you. None of these are true.















Bloo and git at the Whitsundays. We had to wear these ugly stinger suits because its jelly fish season and just three linear feet of box jelly tenticles on your skin could be fatal.

More Pics

This is our tour boat leading people to the beautiful white beaches of Whitehaven at the Whitsundays Islands. The sand is 99.97% silica and does not retain heat at all.















This is a platypus we found in the wild. he would float for a while then dive down to look for food for about one minute at a time.














Nicole is relocating the eggs hatched by the loggerhead turtle. The turtle had laid them in a high tidal zone and would be washed away without this relocation.

Picture Update

This is a loggerhead turtle laying 158 eggs on Mon Repos Beach in Bundaberg

Miscellaneous Pics

Clancy's Pies. He's been a busy dog













This is from the Ripley's Believe it or not museum. This picture is made entirely of Toast. Over 200 pieces of partially burnt toast it took to make this.














Surfers paradise. Lots of drinking goes on in this town. This was kareoke night. we did "Build me up" as a duet and Bloo sang "Bohemian Rhapsidy" and "Only the good die young"

This has been our only natural Koala sighting. We almost hit him with our car driving back from Nimbin.

Nimbin Pics

The guide describes this town as the hangover from the 1973 Aquarius festival. As you can see they are still in full festival mode in the town of Nimbin.

This is the giant joint used evey year at the anual 'Mardi Grass' festival



















The owner of this shop had been harrased for not having her trading hours posted so this was her response.

This sign explains itself

This is the Nimbin Rocks. There is an aboriginal folklore story that goes along with it.

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Byron Bay, Hippies, Didgeridoo's, and Park Rangers...

We arrived in Byron Bay last week to experience an honest hippy trap. It was Woodstock with no music. Heaps of dirty people gathering in circles making didgeridoo sounds accompanied by hand drums, guitars, and occasionally flutes. There are many folks like us living in wagons or vans. The mystery is where they all went to sleep at night.

Our first night in town we found what we thought to be a nice spot to park and sleep for the night among many other vans and wagons. Once the car was parked in its location we decided to go out to the pub for a few drinks. When we returned to to the car we found that most other campers had vacated the area. So after we were both a bit too snockered to move the car we decided to sleep in the car and keep a watchful eye for the rangers in the morning.

At 6:00 in the morning we were awoken by a ranger knocking on our neighbor's van window. Hearing this I grabbed my bag from the front of the car, crawled to the front seat, and tried to start the car for a smooth getaway. Unfortunately I turned the engine over but it did not start. Upon the second time turning the car over it started and I pulled out into the road. Just then the ranger came running over to our car to knock on our window.

He approached the window to find me wearing nothing but my boxers. He asked my how long I had been parked there. I told him we had driven through the night and got there at 5:00. He simply looked at me and said "No". So I explained that maybe it was 4:00. He looked at the front of the car and said "try again. You knew you were doing something wrong since you were trying to get away from me". So I said that maybe it had been around midnight that we arrived. He agreed and gave us a ticket for $86 for violating parking hours.