Hi all,

So pretty much just a little recap over the things we have done so far since being here. cause at this rate i will never get to it.

On the second weekend that we were here we went to the Billabong wildlife sanctuary. Its about 20-30mins drive out of Townsville and they have enclosures of indigenous Australian animals. Its pretty cool. They had koalas, a wombat, snakes, spiders, crocodiles, kangaroos, cassowary, even turtles. The area was hit in 2008? by a tornado and pretty much rip to shreds a lot of the enclosures, so at the time of us going alot of them were still being rebuilt and alot of the animals had to be re-homed :( so it was actually alot smaller. Oh and they had Dingos (We are proud kiwis, but its really hard not to say Dingo without the Australian accent, hahaha) and don't forget the saying "crickey a Dingo aate my baaaby" I absolutely enjoyed saying that over and over again throughout the park. A little insensitive because it did actually happen, but it was so much fun to say. hahaha
here is the link for those that want to check out their website:
http://www.billabongsanctuary.com.au/native_animals.html

and for those of you who are coming to visiting, we will take you there. You need to spend the whole day their because you go to these shows which are lead by the keepers and they tell you all about the animals. The first one we went to was the cassowary.

This dinosaur looking creatures are actually pretty cool. What they do (Don't read if your about to eat) Is they eat the seeds and grass etc (herbivores) and their digestion system strips the outer layers of the seeds and then they poop out the seeds. And then the seeds being smothered in nutritious manure are given that vital chance to grow again.Which then rebuilds the forest. Cool cycle of life thing going aye?

After we went to the cassowary, it was time to meet the wombat - Nugget.


















This is one of the keepers and they tell you all about a particular animal that they have. Here is the wombat. He is soooo cute. You know animals really do have personalities its pretty awesome. This keeper was telling us about how when the tornado hit recently they were forced to close for nearly two months i think. And poor nugget became quite sick, they got in a vet from Brisbane to come and look at him and they couldn't find anything. They changed his diet etc and he still didn't bounce back. But once they started the shows again he began to put on weight. and returned to perfect health, the problem was he wasn't on show during that time and became depressed. How funny is that..
After they talk about the animals for a bit we are then allowed to go up and meet them. He was so soft and cute, i wanted to take him home. But Daniel kindly reminded me that we weren't allowed pets at home :( hehe.

After this show was the Koalas. We missed this because we were exploring the other end of the sanctuary.... CROCODILES :)
Then it was time to meet the local common snakes... haha hahaha (nervous laughter) Pythons and Boa. these creatures we are taught to fear are bloody common here!!!

These photos are of a water python - She put it on the ground and came slithering for my feet - friggin freaky lol











This lovely creature is a bearded dragon. He was cute








BOA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!






BOA!!!!
and yes it is common here in northern Queensland! but rest assure i haven't seen one yet.










They also brought out a saltwater crocodile for us to learn about:

After the reptile learning. It was time for lunch and turtle racing! Then dingos, then crocodile feeding :)

So i just added some more photos of other animals and the croc feeding. Daniel and I were holding the water python. BTW the snakes are highly venomous too. and the other photos we have are of a white/golden Dingo, Daniel feeding a kangaroo and the turtles. Then the bottom left is Goliath, the parks first crocodile and then bottom right is a kookaburra.

So that pretty much was our day. Pretty cool huh?

Next post is going to be Magnetic island.

See ya soon

Wednesday - ANZAC DAY

My 3rd favourite day of the year. Here is how our day panned out. Awake and 4am to be at the airforce/army base by 5ish. WOW!!!
As soon as you enter you get this overwhelming feeling that this is the one day that you feel absolutely lucky to be alive and its all to do with those who fought for our freedom!! and the aussie's know how to celebrate them.

The service was to be held with 5th Aviation unit, they had a memorial built underneath some palm trees to remember those that have fallen, specifically for 12th June 1996 when two Black hawks collided with each other during an anti terrorism exercise killing 20 of their own people. The people on base still remember this day and you could still see the effect this had on the people of 5th Av Regi. Just like in NZ we remember the Huey that crashed only two years ago on ANZAC day.

As you walk towards the memorial there were loud speakers playing the sounds of artillery and machine gun fire it was intense!! All the men were dressed in suit and tie and ladies in respectable dress as if in mourning. Our boys tho turned up in their SD's (This is the dark blue pants, tie and blazer with a pale blue shirt and dress hat). I was very proud of our kiwi boys and i think they would of done NZ proud!
They held the service doing prayers and speaches until the sun rose. Then they offered a cooked breakfast with beer! Kinda funny cause even though its 7am it felt ok to be drinking at that time of the day - it seemed as if it was a toast.
Heres some photos: (Sorry only took three)

This is memorial as we approached

The cooked breakfast

The tribute in the centre of the table - There was a candle in front

After the breakfast we decided to to head to the parade that they were going to have along the strand at 9.30. The guys went home and got changed and then came and met us and we walked down.

The parade was AWESOME! They do not wear poppies here though, but sprigs of rosemary! Courtesy of google we found out why. Why? Because for the Australians poppies are worn on remembrance day which is in November and wear sprigs of Rosemary on ANZAC day as a symbol of remembrance (personally its around the wrong way, but hey) The significance of the rosemary is that it is suppose to enhance your memory - so symbolically helps you to not forget those that had fallen.

Here are some photos of the parade:

Mounted veterans

The crowd

Old army ambulance

Injured veterans

Marching troops

Fly over

The photos arent the best, as it was very difficult because we were in a very bad spot, but we felt the vibe.
The parade went on for ages. Towards the end of the parade, was pretty much schools, and their was hundreds of them. Personally i dont see the need for schools to be in the parade, yes they are the future but ANZAC is to remember those who have been.
We were having a laugh about it we had kids and we needed to pick a school just go to one of the parades at least then they come to you haha.

After this we pretty much went home for a few drinks untill midday when the resturants starting serving their lunch menus and went out for lunch to a place called monsoons by everyones leisure boats. That was pretty much it for the rest of the day. :)

See yas next time

Tuesday:

We officially moved into our little apartment. We checked out of the hotel at about 8.30 - 9am. As our rental furniture and air freight were due to be delivered at 10 - 11am and i wanted to give the place a little clean. The place smelt like industrial cleaner, yuck!
From Mr Rental we got:
A 3 seater couch,
mattress and frame
a NEW fridge, Microwave and washing machine.
A NEW TV and
Coffee table, console table and a dining table.

Its surprising how big it all made the place be. I swear the apartment is actually bigger then our one back home!  The lounge is huge! it will easily fit our 3, 2 & 1 Seater couches, plus the tv and all its bits and bobs and the lounge will still have room to spare. Were just not too sure where to put Daniels computer. It will fit anywhere but just where.
It is also really wierd having our own ensuite, when we come back to NZ eventually we will have to get use to actually leaving the room to go to the bedroom. hahaha

After we unpacked we went grocery shopping, it was suprisingly not that bad to be honest. We were expecting  $500 but it came to more$300, i guess it comes down to the fact that milk is $2 for a 2 litre and fruit and vege here are really cheap. The way it is meant to be. However alcohol is really expensive here the cheapest 24 pack of beer you are looking at paying $39 at least. So daniel has decided to brew his own beer while were here.

By the end of the day we were buggered, we had our first home cooked meal - Butter chicken and then went to bed, we have an early start the next morning - ANZAC day :)

Gidday maaaate,

OK so what has happened on Monday 23rd, we went and inspected our new apartment. The way they do it here for some wierd reason is, you walk throughout the house listing all the problems like a hole in the wall, soap pilth on the shower type thing. Then they give us the key. But we cant move into the house until the next day. But oh well. So we went back to the hotel. Earlier dan and i had gone for a little shopping excurison to find a new bike for Dan and but what do we find a Toyworld!! and how perfect is this they had a sale on boardgames so we brought RISK!! and a really awesome bike.

Dans bike - Flash huh

Oh and we also brought a car - a 1999 suzuki Baleno

It isnt a big car but its perfect for us as a little run around. And it is a manual. Oh just a wee tip for those planning on coming to visit, if you are getting a rental car, try and get one that is manual unless you get a grunty automatic. Because we live just off some really steep hills and our rentla we had struggled everytime to get up and down the hill.

For the last few nights we have been having to go out for dinner and our new great hangout was the seaview hotel, they do really nice steaks but they do the best woodfire pizzas EVER!!!!and they arent that expensive.

After we went out for tea, we went back to the hotel and we had Margaret and Beachy come and visit our room so that the boys could play RISK! I played Daniel earlier in the day, hahaha tensions flared.

Here are some pictures of our last night at the hotel:

 

Hi,
From where we left off. Here is some pictures of the hotel. These have been borrowed off the internet to give you guys an idea of what its like.


So it was pretty much located on the beach (The view will come soon) 

The big building in the centre is it - Quite an eye saw really

Looking up it - We were on the eleventh floor

Out the front - Beside it is the pool and in front is the ocean

The strand - This is the main strip of beach

The pool

Hi  everyone,

Well Daniel and i have now finally got internet flowing at home, after 2 weeks of waiting. So people this is just a heads up their is going to be a massive influx of posts and photos coming of our adventure so far.