gotcha!

there is a kookaburra that nests in one of the trees in front of our house. at first i found its laughing call to be annoying and slightly creepy in the mornings, but now it's just background noise.

every now and then he drops by my balcony to say hello. today i finally caught him on camera! he was kind enough to leave me a little sumthin'-sumthin' to remember him by.

grrr...

fraser - day 3.

we woke up to the sun just peeking over the horizon.


first on the agenda for day 3 was a trip up past indian heads to what are called "champagne pools". (3)

as the tide comes in, it splashes over the rocks and sprays the swimmers. in the pools there are also tons of little fishies that swim around. that was cool.

we then headed back down the beach and up a short hike to the top of indian heads. there we were able to see sting rays and sharks through the water.

we had some awesome views.

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after that, we drove back south towards our campsite for the night.

on the way down, we stopped by the maheno shipwreck. (3)

the maheno used to be a luxury cruise ship in the early 1900s. it served as a hospital ship during the first world war. and in 1935 it was being towed from melbourne to japan for scrap metal when it was hit by a huge cyclone. a few days later, it drifted ashore and beached itself onto fraser island. apparently more than 3.5 storeys of the ship is buried under the sand.

we then dropped by eli creek. we rinsed off the sand and salt water at eli creek. eli creek is one of the bigger washouts where freshwater from the island drains into the ocean. we were told the water was clean enough to drink - as long as you weren't downstream of all the swimmers! despite the water being a chilly 16 degrees celsius, there were plenty of people that floated down the current.

this is us walking up the creek.

as we drove up to our campsite, we caught a glimpse of a dingo!


that night we had dinner, played marco polo in the dark on the beach and admired the jellyfish that washed onto the shore with the incoming tide.

broken umbrellas and broken tails.

do you remember my beautiful (read: hideous) green umbrella with flower patterns on it? the one that i used shamelessly? it broke yesterday. i swear i didn't break it on purpose. i didn't throw it against walls or under buses. it just broke. will need to go out and get another one soon, it's supposed to rain all week.

yesterday there was a tiny TINY little gecko that was running around the house. i let it be until it went into my room. i didn't want it to go into my pillow case or my school bag, so i caught it. i trapped it with one hand and tried to pick it up by its tail with my other hand. when i finally got my thumb & forefinger on its tail & pulled gently, the tail fell off! i guess that's one of their defense mechanisms. the coolest thing though, was that the tail, now separate from the body was still moving! it flopped around from side to side.

did you know...
by the time your pillow is 3 months old, 70% of its weight is due to dust mite feces?!? yes. it's true. you're probably sleeping on dust mite feces.

i will put more photos of the house soon.
speaking of the houses... we inspected well over 20 houses during our house-hunt. but there's this one house that i remember quite distinctly. there was just something really odd about it. i can't put my finger on it. maybe it was the colour combo of the carpets and the sun-dried look of the wallpaper. maybe it was the velour sofas upstairs. maybe it was the indoor sauna. it was just really creepy. it was like something out of a horror/thriller movie. the craziest thing was that when the 3 of us walked out of the house, we all looked at each other and almost simultaneously said "that was weird". we struck that house right off of our list. i don't really believe in haunted houses but this one had a really weird vibe.

saw JUNO on friday night. what a great movie. very indie & felt very canadian. then again ellen page & michael cera are canadian, not to mention it was shot in vancouver & the director jason reitman is also canadian. it's definitely got my stamp of approval.

what i'm listening to right now: 2nd period of the leafs vs. sens game on AM640. we've just blown one 2-man advantage & we've just been given another 2-man advantage. leafs are up 2-1.

song that's been on repeat on iTunes: "you and i both" by jason mraz.

peeping tom.

we've had an unwanted guest for the past few days.
a gecko has been living in our bathroom. at first i just let him be, thinking that he'd leave soon enough. but nope, he's stuck around.


today i decided that it was rude of him to watch me shower and brush my teeth so i took him out and released him into a nearby bush.

i have no idea what kind of gecko he is and am even more clueless about the type of habitat he lives in. hopefully, he isn't easy prey for the birds or turkeys that roam around the backyard.

ninth day (29th of june)

it was the last day of the trip. Another early morning as we had to return the boat to abel point marina (2) by 10am.


After dealing with all the paperwork, we set our feet back on solid ground, took a nice warm shower and re-entered civilization. We shuttled it back to Proserpine and flew to Brisbane.

you can actually see shannen, meera and eric (far r→l).

some things that I forgot to mention:
1. we ate REALLY well on this trip. We took turns making dinner each night. We had seafood carbonara on one night, lamb chops with veggie kebabs and pasta on another night and curry with buffalo wings and calamari on yet another night. Everything was delish! I guess you could say that we all ate like kings. Or in the case of some people, perhaps more like pregnant women.


2. while we were snorkeling in butterfly bay, there were all these colourful fish. And when you snap underwater, they would swim towards you – why? Not sure. I guess they were just curious – so you’d have these schools of fish swimming all around you and some times would even bump into you!

3. I took a disposable underwater camera with me. i just hope some of the pictures turn out.

4. I didn’t really wrap up the story about our holding tank. When we radioed in our problem, they gave us 2 choices: (a) come back to the marina and they’ll unplug it for us or (b) one of us had to go under the boat to plunge one of the holes leading out of the septic tank. Karsten our crazy german took one for the team.

5. during our off day, i was reading with my feet in the water. when suddenly someone screamed out "look at that!"

it was an eel of some sort. i was so startled i almost pooed my pants.

The trip was a huge success. Everyone got along well enough and we all had a great time. I definitely want to get a sailboat some time down the road. Probably not a catamaran though. Sure they have more deck space but they’re bulky and don’t handle as well. Not to mention… there’s nothing like the feeling of a sailboat that’s keeled over to one side. I wish you guys could have seen some of the views and felt some of the waves…

shower count for the trip: 3.

Seventh day (27th of June)

Another early morning.
We got up, had a light breakfast and then went for a hike. A 1½-hour hike in thongs!

But the views of the islands when we got up there were well worth the journey.

the pictures don’t do justice.

we then made our way to macona inlet (8).


when we got to macona we saw something that was perhaps the highlight of this trip.

those are dolphins. I’m sorry for the poor picture quality – I wish I had an SLR camera! It was so cool. And at night, you could hear them splashing in the water. You couldn’t see them, but you could definitely hear them.

Later that night, we drank warm tea and played bridge like little old ladies.

fifth day (june 25th)

another short sail and we were at tongue bay (6).


there we had cheeseburgers for lunch...


and then headed up to a peak overlooking whitehaven beach to burn off the excess calories.


after the peak, we went down to the beach to explore the wildlife...


soldier crabs...


stingrays...

we then took some silly pictures...



and drank beers on the beach.


what more can you ask for right?

shower count since leaving brisbane: still 1.

Third day (23th of June)

Another early morning.
We headed north to Butterfly Bay (4).


We swam and snorkeled at Butterfly Bay but unfortunately, the visibility was quite poor.


We decided to go on a hike. During this hike we came across a pretty little waterfall…


And bumped into a couple of goats. Seriously.


Shower count since leaving Brisbane: 1.

second day - 22rd of june

We woke up early and took our last shower on solid ground.
We then had a 3.5 hour orientation and we were off!


Our first destination was a quick sail away at Nara Inlet (3).


It was wet and cold but we were just WAY too pumped up to let any of the poor weather get in our way.

When we go there, a parrot greeted us.


Eric coaxed it with some crackers.


By the time we anchored and had dinner, everyone was pretty pooped. Shannen had made seafood carbonara and everyone had a serious case of the ITIS. (don't know what ITIS means? check wiki!) We spent that first night getting used to the rocking and rolling of the boat as we slept.

Shower count since leaving Brisbane: 1.

video...

as promised.

koalas, kangaroos and owls... OH MY!

yesterday some friends and i went to the lone pine koala sanctuary. it is the first and largest koala sanctuary in the world. we had a really good time. a quick little pictorial summary.

we started off with the koalas.

unsatisfied with just petting one we decided to shell out the extra coinage to HOLD one.

they were so cute.

i think the one that i was holding got a little too excited. so male koalas have these scent glands on their chest from which they secrete a special scent to attract other females. well... i got squirted.

eww...

we then headed off to see a "birds of prey" show. it was pretty cool. they had some eagles, a hawk and an owl. i volunteered to stick my arm out for the owl to fly to. i had, what looked like the intestines of a rat placed into my glove, i then held it out and the owl flew over. but apparently i was holding onto the treat a little too tightly. the owl started to dig it's claws into me and peck at my hand. it didn't hurt. but i could DEFINITELY feel it's talons.

i think my friend matt video-taped this. i'll post it up when i get it from him.

we then went to feed some lorikeets.

wow they were loud.


some of us weren't so lucky. yep. that's bird poop!

we then went over to play with the kangaroos. yup. KANGAROOS! it was so cool.
you could get right up to them...


to pet them...


and feed them.


the little joeys were just TOO cute!


we then went back to see the koalas. took WAY too many photos. this one is probably my favourite.

can you see the little guy at the bottom? he's just by the mom's left knee.