Those Girls Travel: Rain Rain go away, oh good its gone! Hello Sunshine Coast!

So we left our last overnight holiday park location at Ainsworth Lake and had about a 3 hour drive to our next weeklong destination at Coolum Beach. About an hour into the drive we had a pitstop at Currumbin for a dip in the water. They had standup paddle boards and kayaks for rent by the hour, so we did.

After a pigout of KFC, we drove through Brisbane north about an hour and arrived in Coolum Beach to our new apartment. We were looking forward to staying put for a while and NOT having to repack suitcases and load the car again.

Our first morning was cloudy and rain was threatening, so we thought if we were going to climb a mountain, we should do it sooner rather than later. Within the hour, we were halfway up Mt. Coolum, (part of the Glass Mountains: they are all volcanic, particularly intrusic volcanoes)

The men made me wear the backpack to try and slow me down, i was pretty speedy and they were huffing and puffing. So i put it on to humour them, and i was still speedy and they were still huffing and puffing!

There was rain in the forecast for a couple of days, so we thought we would try and do something inside and/or something that we wouldn't do, if it was sunny. Our best bet was the Australia Zoo (home of Steve Irwin Crocodile Hunter!)

This was the coolest zoo ever, as it was Steve Irwins and it was interactive. We saw koalas, turtles, komodo dragons (for real this time), wallabies, dingos, cassowary (endangered less than 1000), binturong, camels, saltwater and fresh water crocs, alligators, (Crikey!). There were a few highlights of this day including: FEEDING KANGAROOS in an open grassland park area, outdoor ampi-theatre style bird show (seeing pink parakeets, green parrots, orange parrots, red parrots, white parrots, and a CONDOR!!!!!!) This was one of the coolest things, all of us agreed. The condor wings span was like 900 feet across, he barely fit through the gate. Then the last part of the show was feeding crocodiles. This was led by the remaining Irwin family (Terry, Bindi & Robert). Apparently Robert was allowed to feed his first croc at age 10 and he demonstrated this like a pro. It was cool, but kinda hollywood (Todd says).

Terry Irwin feed Graham the croc. 14 feet

Zoo girl holding 22 year old koala

Almost extinct cassowary bird. That thing on his head is not a hat, or feathers.

It was soggy, but warm. And then it was time to go home.

Finally, the clouds parted, and the sun came out today, so we had to do something beachy. We were planning on doing a ferry cruise through Noosa, and then a short hike through the Noosa National park. We stopped briefly for the men to get their hair done and to get some pie, so Wanda and I went to the shops to get her a bathing suit or two. Epic success on the swimmers, AND the shop lady gave us a way better itinerary for the day. We rented a T-boat for 3 hours, and Captain Brent scooted us up and down the river to the ocean, with the powerful 9.9 horsepower engine (wow was it scary!).

During our cruise up the river, we saw some really unique boats, houses and houseboats.

This was just a small square building perched in the middle of the river (200 sq ft in size). Who does that?

We swam in this amazing little protected bay, had lunch, jumped off some sand bags, floated some more and then drove over to the boardwalk and watched surfers for a while. It was all awesome!