Noosa River

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Happy Birthday, Geddy! Our first born turns 14 today, although both he and Ivy have agreed that he should be truly acknowledging tomorrow as his birthday as it is still July 7 in the States. After talking him out of going to the Australia Zoo, which is about an hour back toward Brisbane, he decided that we should rent a boat and tour around the river. We wouldn't be able to go around the point into the ocean, but it looked like we could occupy ourselves in the bay and river.

We started off on our 8-seat boat driving out of the river toward the bay on the backside of where our hotel sits on the beach. After pulling out, Geddy didn't wait too long to take the wheel. He coolly sat in the driver's seat like he drives a boat every day. We circled a small island with some serious real estate on it and lapped back into the bay. The bay is full of shallow water and a couple of spots where sand spits show themselves most of the day, except for at the high tide mark. We were around mid-tide and found a spot to beach the boat and get out for some fun in the sand and shallow water around the temporary island. This turned out to be a lot of fun. The kids played games in the shallow water, which didn't get too deep to have to worry about Theo. The water was also fairly warm and most of the sand was undisturbed. It always feels cool to have the only footprints in otherwise unscathed sand.

After playing for a while, we headed up river. Ivy took a turn driving and Geddy even let Theo sit on his lap and try to take us into oncoming traffic. After about 15 minutes up river, the housing gave way to stumpy mangrove forest and an occasional houseboat. It was so different than just a half kilometer toward the mouth of the river.

We headed back to the hotel and hit the beach for some more playing in the waves before the kids all hit the pool. We scouted out pizza and watched a movie in the room before tucking our now 14-year old in. Unbelievable.

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