Busy Busy Day

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Thursday the 30th

OI OI OI

What a day

Hi all from OZ

Today in short -

Swam with sharks at Seal Rocks
Saw our first Dingo
Fed Kangaroo’s and Wallabies in Port Macquarie
Petted Koala’s in Port Mcquarie
Ate dinner while we watched dolphins playing in the bay in Port Macquarie
Watched Wes make a new friend from Singapore
Got hammered in Port Macquarie

To start…

We got a fairly early rise today, around 7:30 or so. Our plans were to stay an extra day in Seal Rocks but due to some scheduling we just couldn’t do it. Plan B was to get a late checkout which is what we did. After breakfast we went down to the beach where the early morning surf was much calmer than the day before YAY! Wes shouldn’t have a problem today. So off we went, with some hesitation from Kirk and Paulina. Ya know they can talk the talk, but when it comes down to it, they’re a little apprehensive about swimming with sharks. Jason with Wes on his back went out maybe 500 feet or so, with us following. We saw lots of fish, from these long pointed things (thousands of them) to some yellow striped fish (hundred of them.) Jason got real excited and called us over. This is I really had to drag Kirk out, as he was downright scared. We got out there and there she be, a real shark right beneath us, maybe 5 feet away. It was a wobbygong shark; I think they’re native to Australia. It wasn’t a huge shark, maybe 4 feet long, but apparently it’s known around here as being a little nasty, kind of the dog of the sea according to the campsite guru. So there we have it, our first encounter with a shark, unfortunately it wasn’t a grey nurse, but ah well, got to build up to it, especially when it comes to Kirk and Paulina.

Just after I took my shower I spotted a dog that the campsite owner told us about, a real life dingo. He said not to worry about this dog, as it’s somewhat domesticated, but did warn us not to approach it, or feed it. Cool looking dog, very sleek, I’d say maybe 40 to 45 lbs, brown in colour. After our dingo encounter we got packed up, and headed north, to Port Macquarie for the night. On our way we saw a billboard for a koala breeding park, sure, why not stop in. We stopped and saw lots of stuff, but the highlight was feeding wallabies and kangaroo’s and petting koalas. They are so cute and cool looking! We spent about 30 minutes with the kangaroo’s, petting them and feeding them, then were off to the koala’s where we got to pet them. Those guys are cool. We met a 10 year old koala named nessie. Very laid back creatures, they sleep 20 hours a day! Must be nice. Anyhow we’re back in the RV headed north.

We land in Port Macquarie around 5 pm and sign in. These guys didn’t charge extra for the kids, the nightly bill is only 22 $ AUD… cool. As we’re all starving, we walk down the Harbour entrance and see 3 pods of dolphins (all with 3-4 dolphins) just swimming back and forth, what a sight to see these guys in their natural habitat. We see the restaurant that was recommended to us up ahead (called the beachhouse) and we stop in on their patio. These restaurants, as with a few others we’ve been to here you have to go up to the bar, order and pay for your food, and give them your table number, and they’ll bring the food out to you. One drawback is when you’ve had to many drinks it gets harder to re-order lol (as was the case tonight.) Jason and Paulina order fish and chips, I get a Caesar salad, Kirk a burger and Wes gets garlic bread and fries. The food was pretty good, but the highlight was watching the dolphins playing for the boats in the Harbour, only 200 feet away. They were jumping out of the water for the boats, something I’ve never seen other than in places like marine land. The restaurant was set on a boardwalk, maybe 100’ to the water. I’m not sure how Wes ended up meeting another small girl here but he did, and the 2 of them played for 3 hours or so while we drank…and drank some more! He had a ball. It turns out the girl is from Singapore, with her parents. Her father is here doing the iron man triathlon this weekend. Apparently this iron man here is world famous, and people come from all places just to do it. Cool!

Wes promised the girl (named Kayla) an ice cream so we went around the corner and got some Baskin Robbins. We met her parents there, turns out that they were at the koala breeding center at the same time we were, and it also turns out we have them in a photo feeding the kangaroo’s. Talk about small world!

That’s about it for today, as it’s late and we’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.

More tomorrow.

Lee

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Comments

[melissa]

'dingo ate my baby'--OMG, Lee, I sat here in the basement laughing my ass off, LOL! That's too funny! Here's an interesting thing: Blue Heelers are Australian breeds, and apparently to develop the breed domestic collies and shepherds were bred with dingos. So Hailey has a little dingo in her somewhere--I guess that's why she has to taste everybody, :P. OMG, what is it with the beets on burgers? And carrots??? Ewww. Geez, the Aussies have weird taste--you sure there aren't Newfoundlanders living down there? Ah yes, Wesley Steeves, aka: International Toddler of Mystery. That's so cute that he made a friend :D. And the Iron Man competitions are really interesting, you guys should see if you can watch one. They have all kinds of bizarre endurance tests for contestants--For strength, sometimes they have to pull a eighteen wheeler by themselves using only a chain, and other ones are having to lift up twelve women on a platform, and things like that. It's quite gruelling, and kind of like WWF only for athletic ability. Andrew used to love the Iron Man competitions when we got them on cable about ten years or so ago, and I found them pretty interesting too. They don't air them here anymore. I hope the service improves for you guys--maybe you hit a snotty part of town or something? And how cool is it that you got a little possum visit at night! They're actually pretty cute when they aren't trying to rip your face off! Of course, there's a picture of you petting a koala. JUST DON'T COME HOME WITH ONE! LOL :D