Day 1 in Australia

We got up dark and early and flew from Auckland to the Gold Coast Airport in Coolangatta, Queensland, Australia. It is a three hour time difference between there an Auckland so we arrived quite early in the morning. It is intersting to note that, if you ignore day change due to the international date line, this is the same time difference as between Auckland and Vancouver. Contrary to popular opinion though, New Zealand is not half way between Canada and Australia.

Shortly after we started driving north to Brisbane we passed the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. I had read about it before we left so we decided to stop. It was early on a weekday and not very busy. We arrived just in time for the wild Lorikeet feeding. We were no match for the hundreds of Lorikeets. They completely drowned out Matthew's screams as they clawed up his arm, but he thoroughly enjoyed himself.



You can buy food to take into the Kangaroo enclosure and, well, feed Kangaroos. The food sales hadn't opened up by the time we got there so they gave us free food. It wasn't very good so we fed it to the Kangaroos. The big one in the top right is named Zeus. You do not want to get into a boxing match with him.

Yes, they also have Crocodiles. This is a salty. I'm surprised anyone in Australia ever goes in the water. If that water was muddy you wouldn't even know he was in there.

We saw quite a few wild animals at Currumbin. After feeding the Pelicans they switch to the squirmy black things in the water, the fresh water eels. This was the first creepy thing we saw in Australia.

Another wild guest is this water dragon that joined us for lunch.

Of course it wouldn't be Australia without the spiders. They were all over the place. These guys were as big as they look. After seeing these I got a bit concerned whenever I walked through a web.



We did eventually get through the huge hotels of the Gold Coast and to the information center in Brisbane, but that was a huge waste of time. Their only information was that there was some sort of concert in town and unless we had a room booked we should leave. So we did. We drove north and eventually found a helpful information center (complete with gas and a McDonald's). We decided to go to Bribie Island for the night and found a motel on the east coast. This picture was taken on the beach near the motel just after we arrived.