Fosicking for gemstones such as Rubies,Zircones, Emeralds and Saphires, our "find" was varied and very pretty but only fair;y small pieces, but a lot of fun.
Darren with one of the many differnt breeds of animals/cows on the farmfest which we visited for a day. one of the biggest agriculture displays for the farmers.
Just outside Toowoomba was a special day in honour of the draught horses of Australia. it was very interesting to see these gentle giants at work ploughing and pulling logs but also dressage and gymnastics.
A slice of Kauri-Pine of about 600 years old, hard to imagine that there were very large Forests of these trees before the "white" man came.
Hervey Bay and the Uruganda Pier which goes more than 1 km out into the Ocean. We spend a few days in hervey bay walking along the many pretty Bays and beaches, as a superb walk/biking trail goes all along this coastal area.
On the way to Bundaberg, we came through Childers well known for it's Macademia trees/nuts, we stopped at Mammino and watched the nuts being peeled and tasted some of the products especially the ice-cream was very much liked..
Bundaberg or known more popular as Bundi was our next stop for a taste of Bundabergs famous rum and a tour through the distillery, but first we visited Bundaberg ginger beer which is almost as well known but drank in lots less quantity.
Outside/outback cooking at its best, as between cities (villages) was a minimum of 300 km the governement has set up rest areas, where you can stay for a maximum of 18 hours, so we shared the rest area with at leats another 20 vans and campers. A lot of fatal accidents in Australia are due to fatigue and this iis one way of combating it, great..
 PP
Bauxite loading terminal in Gladstone one of Australia's bussiest ports, handeling agriculture, mineral and coal exports.
Birds, Birds and more Birds, around 800 species of bitrds are found around Australia that is just under 10 percent of all those in the world. This is a red tailed Black Cockatoo a noisy bird that comes in groups and makes heaps of noise.
In the Beserker ranges just North of Rockhampton are the Capricorn lime stone caves whose caves and passages are spectacular, we especially enjoyed the Cayhedral cave with beautiful music.
We had travelled through huge acrage of sugar cane and when we reached McKay it was the beginning of the harvesting season from late June till early December they work 24/7 harvesting, pressing refinning and destilling.
Birds yes also a more domesticated bird that is not necessarily a friend but darren likes them all big and small and they do like him especially if there are some seeds about,
In Airlie Beach we had heard a bit of ratteling in the bushes at night and had assumed it was possums, however whilst reading the paper we looked up to get a bit of a freight from this little (2m) Iguana who was happily walking between our van and tent!
The fantastic diversity of the Great barrier Reef is legendary, and we had all ready made a small day tour on a ferry to one of the many island, however once we reached the part that is called the Whitsundays from Rockhampton North we decided to stay the night on one of the (74) Islands. We choose Hamilton Island for no special reason!!and the mode of transport is soley by Golfcart. Here we are on top of the look out sharing a glass of champane and the most beautiful sunset.
We stayed in a Palmbungalow on the island which is pretty much a resort island and set up for holiday visitors, it was very luxurious and quite a change from the van!. There are only 4 Islands that are habitated like this all the rest is National park .
Whilst travelling up North after my stop for a few weeks in Townsville and Darrens trip home to New Zealand to spend time with Christopher we would like to do a bit more snorkeling and hopefully go out on a sailing yacht to another part of the reef.
The weather has become very tropical and with that humid with nice warm but windy days with temperatures around 25 degrees and water temperatures of 21 degrees., however it is still winter and the nights cool off to about 6 degrees,
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Jan Feb March 07
