Paradise living

Hi mates,

Well you haven't heard from us for a while. The Aussies aren't as well developed in internet cafes as the Thais. After the Zoo we went up to Hervey Bay, where I wrote my last blog. The Tuesday was a rest day. For Wednesday and Thursday we booked a snorkeling trip to Lady Elliot Island........ Absoluty heaven, paradise....... What a great spot, we felt we were on one of those paradise islands. We flew from Hervey Bay Airport for 50 min. in a 8 person airplane, what a beautiful view we had ........and then arrived at Lady Elliot Island. (maybe website is Lady Elliot Island .com ?????) This one of the more south islands from the Great Barrier Reef. We arrived around 10.00 in the morning, got our cabin ( 3 bunkbeds a closet and a bathroom), view of the ocean........ We got our snorkeling gear and off we went.
Sabien wasn't too sure in the begiining, but at the lagoon we saw great fish. Remmert, Kirsten and Meindert when further in the ocean and saw beautiful fish and turtles and reef sharks. The great thing about this island is that you can walk from the beach into the water and snorkel. If you go from Cairns you mostly sit on a boat for 2 hours, snorkel and go back for 2. So that's one of the reasons why we decided not to go to Cairns, another thing is that they expected a big cyclone (grade fivers, question for you : What is the difference between hurricane and cyclone ????) in Cairns around this time AND we don't have to drive now another 1500 km, so that's why we decided to fly up to lady Elliot Island. We snorkeld that morning, in the afternoon and in the evening we went turtle trecking. On the isalnd there were quite a few turtle nests, and it is still the season for the turtles to lay eggs. So off we went to the beach with one of the marine biologists of the island. First of all we got to release some baby turtles as they found these guys on the beach the day before, so they kept them to release at night (less predators). Then we saw the track of a turtle . It takes a turtle about an hour at dig a whole for the eggs (well after she has found the prefect spot.... and this one took about an hour to find THE spot). So by about 12.30 AM she was ready to pop the eggs. Remmert, Kirsten and Meindert were the die hards, Bien and I were in bed by then.... But it was a great experince they said. Well thursday morning we were snorkeling agian at 7.00 Am, then went for a brekkie buffet and went on a boat that took us out more on the ocean. Absolutely gorgeous fish and turtles, we even saw mantees about 3 m width, one was right underneath me, we swam through schools of fish.
in the afternoon we hang out on the beach and flew back at 4.00 Pm. Great flight back with views from Fraser Island ( one of the 100 world heritage sites, a sand island with rainforest which we visted on Saturday), but it's nice to see land again too when you are in a small plane.... (Bill you would love to fly here...... ) I will add some pics from Lady elliot later this week, they were not on the camera anymore.....

We are heading to Brisbane some where Tuesday or Wednesday, and fly to Sydney on Thursday.

See ya later, and hope everybody is "going good" as they say here

The Hinlopens

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