Fleet review

I'd kind of like to claim this as new as usually I wouldn't be bothered to take all the small folk out on a ferry on a Friday. In fact I never have taken then all on a ferry before but I did have Ukki to help. We took the ferry to Watson's Bay in the far end of the harbour which was a delightful way to see some of the 50 fleet/ navy boats on the harbour for the fleet review (celebrating 100 years of the Navy with boats from all over the world visiting and some fireworks we watched at the neighbour's on the Sat night).  

 

We weren't the only ones with the great idea and so the ferry was pretty packed and we bolted back onto a returning ferry with no queue rather than wait for another 45 minutes to come back. Worked out well as we ended up back at the Cliffe Café in Arncliffe a little over an hour after leaving Watson's bay with a run of perfect connections. Go Public Transport. And the harbour was looking spectacular. Lots of fun.

This is not new

Picnic dinner in the backyard. The boys set it up. Nice and colourful, everyone gets a towel was their thinking. Ukki (Grandpa in Finnish) was visiting though and Daylight savings has just started so our 5 am starts have moved to a much more respectable 6am. Yay!

It started with a snail - new no 30 park performance for the kids

It started when I saw this Blue Snail on the way to work the other day. He's kind of hidden from usual sight see - ers, being behind town hall in a place mainly frequented by us office workers buzzing to and from work. I wondered what he was about and where I could find more, if I could find more (I could there are 24 in Sydney CBD). They are part of Sydney's Art and About festival run by the City of Sydney council.

 

this year is a cracker, gotta love the snails in different colours all over town. I've found 14 of the 24.

Part of the festival was happening in Sydney Park (a 10 min drive from us). Called Spill, it is a performance by 4 dancers/acrobats in park equipment. Jake and Toby were completely captivated by their dancing and flips and twists. I'm claiming it as a win/ new thing as until this year, I'd look at such a thing but not get around to going. With my new can do, will do attitude though, I was there for the first performance I could get to.

 

Followed by a trip to see the Sydney Park snails.

And a bad case of helmet hair.

Kuranda

There's so much to do around Cairns. One option is the train up to Kuranda and the Gondalas back though for a family it was somewhere in the $300 plus mark so we thought we'd just take a drive up that way. What a great few hours out we had. The views on the pass on the way up were spectacular - no wonder the skytrain thing is popular.

 

When we got there, we were fairly scantily prepared, I'd googled that there were a couple of walks around and we decided on the Barron Falls for no particular reason and boy was that a good choice.

Great wooden boardwalk through the rainforest and down to one of the Scenic Railway stops - which stopped just as we were almost there so got to watch it on it's way and the view of the falls was pretty good too.

My favourite bit was the walk through the forest though. Unbelievably the apartment where we're staying has a stroller in it, as well as buckets spades, etc. It came in handy today. Only about 10 minutes each way of walking but a bit far for Bianca  - no doubt she could make it but would rather be carried if given the choice and gets a little noisy about not getting her way at the moment, so much less negotiations required with the pram.

 

And after a demanding ride in the stroller, what could be better than icecream? Mmmmm

Low isles - snorkeling

I'm not sure why this photo didn't load with the last one, but neither did all the words originally so it's an excuse to write some more about snorkelling. So here is the beach where the kids spent some time while we went snorkelling. (and the low isles story now has words).

 

We thought Jake and Toby might be able to snorkel as they're both getting pretty good at swimming and Jake was up first. Given we'd never tried the whole mask thing before, that was probably a bit ambitious. Jake couldn't get the snorkel breathing sorted, but he had the good idea to just look in mask and breath above water. So off we went. He clung on to me and the noodle and we went and saw the reef and few pretty fish. He was a bit freaked out about not being able to stand I think and didn't want to stay out too long but was very brave and calm about it.

 

After that Connah and I both had a chance to do some snorkelling by ourselves and the boys and Connah went on an island tour with the marine biologist. The boys are just like their Dad, not only do they like nature documentaries but they spent the tour as close as possible to the marine biologist, Amy so they didn't miss any information. Cute.

 

The Quicksilver lifesavers were great at directing us at where the best spots to see turtles/ coral was.

 

All in all, I'm claiming this as new thing number twenty-something - snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef.

 

I loved it so much I looked into another day for us later in the week but we were too busy doing so many other things. Far North Queensland is fantastic. In fact we were blown away by the service everywhere we went. We will definitely be back.

No 29 - New animal experiences - Hartely's Crocodile Adventures

This place was amazing. The people and guides were so friendly and it was just a really smooth day out. Easy and entertaining. Lots of guides and information. We arrived a little too late for the first boat ride of the day so the first thing to do was Cassowary feeding. Now the birds spend a while trying to get at the keeper - they're territorial and don't like the keepers "invading". He also told us about how they can kill with their claws but invited to feed them - apparently they wouldn't hurt a tourist. Um, comforting? anyway, I wasn't the first to feed them something, but I did feed them some mouldy apple in the end, just dropped it straight down their throat. yay me.

 

Next up there was a tour of a crocodile farm, followed by a ride on the crocodile river followed by crocodile feeding. It was very impressive and short distances between stuff suited the short legs in our family. Mind you, you could hire a stroller which would have been handy when Bianca was a bit younger..........or if we didn't mind taking her on our shoulders later on in the day.

 

Jake loves animals and has no fear..........well he wouldn't feed the Cassowary but he had no qualms in picking up the snake. I touched it three times - a first - touching a snake but I wasn't going to pick it up. After watching the boys I eventually found the courage to pick up a crocodile which was a bit of a rush actually. Glad I did that one. I'll take this day as my new animal experiences day.

 

The phototgrapher is going on a trip around Australia with a crocodile at the end of this year. He's starting heading to Tassie to keep it as warm as possible for the croc. That'll be a fun trip.

It did get a bit hot later in the day and the little people got a bit tired but it was a fantastic day out. Also great value, a fraction of the price of many of the local attractions - like the skytrain and they even gave you a pass out - if you didn't finish, you could come back within 3 days for no extra. amazing.