G'Day Matey

Monday - Sheila went on a bus tour of Fraser Island.  Fraser Island is the largest all sand island in the world.  4 wheel drive vehicles are all that are allowed on the island.  I had my second day- long roller coaster ride.  However, this time I was mostly on dry land.  Our motel is just across the street from the beach, so Erin spent some time walking on the beach and sleeping!!  Nice weather.  Sunny and about 68 degrees.

Critter count for today.  2 live kangaroo.  1 live dingo.  Dingo's are wild dogs.

Sheila

G Day Mate

Sunday - Drove to Hervey Bay.  450 miles.  Kangaroo count for today.....  3 live, 25 dead.

Saturday - Drove to Airlie Beach.  This is a big tourist area, with the ports for the WhitSunday Islands.  We were not too impressed.  We did however buy some local grown bananas.  Not bad.  We then drove around searching for Conway National Park.  We determined that it does not exist!?  As we continued toward our destination of Mackay, we drove to Eungella National Park.  At Eungella Natl Park, you can see platypus in the Broken River.  We got to see many of them.  Platypus are only located in eastern Australia.

Yesterday, I said that we saw several kangaroo.  Well, today we saw at least a dozen more.  Big problem......they were road kill kangaroo!!  Yes, they were dead on the side of the road.  So Sad.

Sheila

Friday - Spent all day driving about 385 miles, 8 hours to Bowen.  Very nice sunny day.  Sugar cane fields were everywhere.  Also, banana trees, and many other fruit trees.  We also saw three kangaroos along side the road!

Sheila

Great Barrier Reef

Thursday was spent on a roller coaster!!  I am not kidding.  Our snorkeling trip was more like a 3 hour non stop roller coaster ride!  The water was so rough.  They insisted that every person on the boat take sea sickness pills and two people still threw up and several others had their bag handy!  So of course, the snorkeling was not very easy either.  Waves came crashing into your face when you were trying to see something pretty.  This boat normally goes to three different reefs.  The water got slightly calmer as the day continued.  Erin just took off snorkeling away, no problem.  Sheila on the other hand, had some difficulties.  One of our guides, Emma, pulled me around at the first two reefs.  She was super!!  I handled it myself at the third reef.  When I was able to relax and put my head in the water, the view was fantastic!  Emma pointed out many things to be, I even saw Nemo! (Which Erin didn't)(HaHa)  The two guides were Marine Biologists and were very informative and very nice.

Hopefully we can post some pictures soon.  Erin also may want to tell her version of my snorkeling adventures.

We are heading down the coast today, Friday.  Will be staying in Bowen.

Sheila