Australia - adventures

Ok so perhaps the word 'adventure' is a little too dramatic. We really didn't fly all this way to throw ourselves into anything too exciting or in any way dangerous. The aim was simply to visit and spend time with Kate's brother and his wife who volunteered their home to accommodate us and made us feel very welcome. We were accompanied, however, by our son Ben and his wife Naomi and they are both younger and more adventurous than us. Sitting on the stoop watching the birds come for their morning feed was never going to be enough for them.

A walk in the 'bush' kept them content for a short while, followed by a dip in our host's pool.

A couple of trips to Rainbow Beach to swim in the sea was quite an experience for us all too, the waves being a little too big for any actual swimming and it was really just about being bashed around.

The cooling off in a creek on the way back was most welcome though, surprisingly cool despite the heat of the day.

Our hosts also put some bikes at our disposal, one of which was electric, although ancient and heavy enough to be a serious health risk and quite difficult to manoeuvre around tight corners.

Then there was a bit of dolphin feeding at Tin Can Bay where these animals are so used to us that they come to the same place every day for breakfast.

These might have qualified as adventures for us but for our younger family they wanted more, much more. So first of all they booked us all on a coach tour to Fraser Island. 

This proved to be quite an adventure since the island (known now by its original name, K'gari, where the 'K' is silent) has no actual roads. From the ferry the ruggedly constructed bus took us along the beach before heading inland along rutted sandy tracks which bounced us all over the place, to visit a swimming lake and to show us the dense sub-tropical rainforest that covers the island.

We'd hardly started along the beach when we started seeing dingos, an animal the island hosts a considerable number of. These creatures are not to be messed with nor enticed with food and they will chase anything that runs away from them, apparently. There are strict rules about not feeding them and although we felt quite safe up in our four-wheel drive bus one has to wonder about the other holiday-makers making use of their rather smaller four-wheel drive 'utes' to visit the island and even camping out on the beach itself.

One of the main points of interest on the tour was the wreck of the Scottish built ship 'Maheno' towards the north end of the island

and then another treat for us tourists was when one of our coach drivers pulled out his didgeridoo and started playing, the sound carrying right through the dense forest.

With no time to recover from our island adventure, the following day saw us waving farewell to our younger family who had booked a two day canoeing trip in the Everglades, an area of rainforest not far from where we were staying.

This involved kayaking into the wilderness for a whole day, an overnight camp in a tent -hardly luxury - then paddling back the following day. Apparently there was wildlife a plenty but fortunately no encounters with large biting things.

For us elders, of course, the entire holiday was something of an adventure, even the final few days before our flight home which we spent in Brisbane, on which more is coming soon.