A little while back Spencer had a week off from school so we decided to find some fun things to do close to home. Early on in the week we went to the rainforest reserve located in the middle of Lismore and only a couple of blocks from our house. We went on a beautiful day and were excited to see some of the preservation work that had been done to try and keep native plants growing there instead of some introduced plants that are slowly taking over Australia. There are a lot of vines and really big root systems that look like a basilisk slithering under the path and tens of metres away from the mother tree, they're crazy huge. There was a really nice creek going through the centre of the park and we were met with a slightly freaky surprise at the end. I'm not sure if I've told you about all of the bats that fly around the skies at twilight, it must bewhen they start to feed or something. Anyway, we've found where they sleep during the day, and it's about 10 metres above the path in that park. We passed hundreds of fruit bats (aka megabats) that were climbing around trees, flying over our heads and generally freaking me out. As I start trucking out of the park I saw the tail end of a brown snake as well as it slithered down it's hole, further freaking me out. It was kind of an exhilarating adventure, and I am hoping to still go back but maybe be a bit braver this time. Here are some pictures of the adventure as well as some googled images of a brown snake and a fruitbat so you can get full freakiness.
creepy eh?
On either side of that little creek there is part of a giant root of a tree, the water has kept it small, but the root is so big on either side.
Here is a giant root as it curves down to that little creek and then back up again. Ros and I had to take a rest as Spencer spent quite a while trying to capture the essence of the root.
Here are some pictures of the bats, I'm not sure if you can see them really but try to imagine 15-20 per tree and all the noise that they make squeaking and flapping around.
Some shadowy outlines of the bats.
Today was a beautiful day so we decided to head back up the coast to Byron Bay. It's only a 40 minute drive and it's such a beautiful place. It's quite the tourist trap so it was really busy, but it is really worth the trip. When we first got there we walked down to the beach and Spencer waded out to a looking point to take some pictures. We went for a walk along the beach and asked some nice girls to take a family picture for us, and it turns out they were from Toronto backpacking on their summer break. I was hoping that we would get to see some whales as a sister at church said that you could sometimes see them off the cape. We went up to the lighthouse and walked around up there for a while, on our way down to the most Easterly part of mainland Australia we saw a few girls standing along the rail and taking pictures of something, turns out it was a Wallaby! We weren't fast enough to get a picture but we hoped that maybe we could catch a sight of him on the way back up. As we were walking up, there was another group of people along the same fence so Spen ran ahead to hopefully get a picture. He was a little disappointed that it wasn't a wallaby so he started walking away. I was wondering what all those people were looking at so I started really searching below the fence and guess what I saw...DOLPHINS!! They were surfing along the coast and there were so many of them. A group of 18 or so dolphins were swimming along the coast and every time a good wave came along, they would turn at the last minute and surf the wave in. It was amazing and hopefully you can see them in the pictures we took. Spencer was a little sad we didn't have a super nice lens in order to really see them. After the lighthouse, we got some groceries at the Woolworth's in town then went back to a beach and ate pretty much alone by the waves. Spencer changed into shorts and went for a quick swim in the waves while I finished feeding Ros and tried unsuccessfully to get her to go to sleep in the pram. We decided to head home finally after a long day in the sun (and I forgot our sunscreen, I'm a terrible mother). I had dressed Ros in long sleeves and pants and got her to wear her hat most of the time so she escaped unscathed, but Spen and I are not as smart and we got a little rosey on our cheeks and arms, but nothing that even hurts at all. Hopefully it'll just be a little bit of colour for our white Canadian bodies.
One more thing I forgot to mention before was that on our way to Byron Bay we saw a sight that is unfortunately not uncommon. A big old sign for horse manure on sale on the side of the road, $4 a bag! The best part was that a lady caught him taking the picture and was laughing at him while he did it.
On the beach at lunch time "Peace".
The lighthouse at the cape, the sky was so beautiful that day.
The dolphins we saw along the coast, it was amazing to see them surf as they swam along the coast.
The most easterly point of mainland Australia.
Just trying to fit in with the locals, with my inside out shirt. The Burgess' have officially made a stamp on Australia.
Rosy sporting an awesome hat on the cape.
The beautiful beach, we ate lunch just down this shoreline.
A wild turkey that tried to eat us on our walk along the beach.
A nice family picture, one of the few we have in Australia and you couldn't pick a nicer view.
The lookout that Spencer waded out to to take pictures from.
I'm pretty sure I have the cutest little baby in Australia. I forgot to mention that while we were walking up by the lighthouse, the nicest lady knelt down and took a picture of Rosy while we were looking at the dolphins. By the time I looked up, she was running down the path towards her husband. =proof Rosy's adorable!
We saw another sign the other day that said $6 for a bag of chicken poo. You can't help but find joy in signs like that. I'm beginning to really feel comfortable. I even drove home from a fireside today, first time on the left hand side and I didn't kill anyone or even seriously harm them. Love to all.
We had so much fun at movie world, and I'm pretty excited for when we get to go again. It is right next door to the waterslide park that we also have passes to go to so it's even possible to do them the same day or go up for a weekend. For ward conference a month ago, the primary presidency stayed at our house (Marlene's) and they live up on the Gold Coast near the parks. The ladies offered us a place to stay and willing babysitters so I think Spencer and I are going to take them up on that when it's a bit warmer.
The first thing we did when we got there was head over to the stunt driver show. It was amazing!! The cars were sliding all over the place, then sliding in unison, and the whole stadium was filling with smoke. I couldn't believe my eyes and spent most of the time with my jaw dropped. I wonder how many sets of tires they go through in a week of shows?
Next we went to the Batman ride which you lock into and then it shoots you up into the air and then drops you. Getting shot up is scarier than going down, because you have no idea when you're going to stop. On Spencer's ride he was sitting on the same row as some well dressed young guys (wearing Hollister and the like) so he asked them where they were from because we knew they couldn't be Australian. Turns out they were from New Zealand so they had a little talk before they were shot up into the air. Hopefully you can see Spencer's face as they're going up.
The next ride that we went on was the Superman Roller Coaster. I sometimes get a little queasy on rides so Spencer went first to try it out and let me know if he thought I could handle it. I got a couple pictures of him going, the ride is super fun. As you go through the subway tunnels before the ride starts, the walls are crashing in on you and there's water leaking and police cars falling into the subway, as there are alarms going off that the tunnels are going to collapse, you hear Superman's voice tell you that he's going to save you by pushing you out of the tunnels, then you shoot out of the tunnel at breakneck speeds, you go from 0-100 in 2 seconds, and the feeling is intense! If you look closely on the back of the last car you can see a little Superman pushing the cars along the track. The ride was 'Super' fun and by the end of the day I'd done it twice and Spencer had done it 4 times.
Ros always waited so patiently while one of us was on a ride.
Throughout the park you'd run into some superheroes and other WB characters. We saw these superheroes along with Austin Powers, Marilyn Monroe and the Looney Tunes. We're going to have to go again because when the Looney Tunes were walking around Ros was sleeping in the pram so we didn't get a picture of her with them.
Walking through the main street at movie world.
It was an anniversary of DC comics so they had a parade once a day with a bunch of characters from the park.
Spencer was so excited slapping hands with the characters as they went past that he missed taking pictures of all the characters stopping to play with Ros. Catwoman and Scooby-Doo both stopped and talked/played with Rosy for a little bit but Spen was too excited waiting for Batman to come and give him a hi-five. Oh brother!
We had so much fun at Movie World and we're excited to go back, unfortunately my favourite ride was closed for maintenance (log ride) so we'll have to go back on a hot day when I can go on my favourite ride 4 times while Spencer waits with Ros. I of course made Ros go on the carousel again even though she didn't love it. I feel like if we ride the carousel, then it makes a whole day o her having to wait for us fair. Love to all.
