Cruisin...

Hello all!

We picked up our van from Wicked Campers and started our journey from Brisbane to Cairns. But before that, we took a detour south to the gold coast to see the theme parks.



This is us parked up at the gold coast - our van is called Murdock as it has a big pic of the lead singer from Gorillaz, Murdoch (aka Damon Albarn from Blur). You can't see it as the door is open, but I'll get a pic sometime soon.

I had hoped to be able to choose our van, as there were heaps of options (including a Beatles one, which Princess wanted) but we were issued this. On the plus side, it was an upgrade to power steering and A/C as the one pencilled for us hadn't arrived.

We have seen heaps of these campers, and every one has a unique paint job. Saw one painted up in yellow with the DHL logo, and "Days and Hours Late" underneath it.. funny. Also seen Scoobys mystery machine, Sex pistols, Family Guy, Simpsons, the Goonies... you get the idea.

So on day one, we went to Dreamworld and looked around. I went on all the rides, but Princess didn't want to ride the scary ones. The only one that was truly scary was the Giant Drop




First off, I'm not great with heights. Second, this is easily double the height of the one at Rainbows End. Third, although fast acceleration is exilerating, being accelerated downwards is a whole different thing! I was scared for most of the ride upwards slowly, and downright petrified on the 3 seconds of freefall downwards.... urg!

To make things worse, that night we hear that some poor girl in the US got her feet ripped off at the ankle on a very similar ride, with the boss of Dreamworld going on TV assuring everyone that their ride was OK...

All the other thrill rides were fun. On top of the thrill rides there were lots of other things to do.



They had a Tiger show, and we got to get up close (but not touch) the baby tiger cubs... Sooooo cute! we saw a few iMax movies, and ate lots of (expensive) candy.. was really cool.



We won some tickets at the arcade park, so I got a tattoo for my mum - Love you mom! Don't worry its just a sticker...

Went to WhiteWaterWorld next door the next day, but it was a bit cold to really enjoy, so after trying out all the rides, we went back to DreamWorld. Princess will tell you all about the water park rides sometime anyway.

After our fun at the gold coast, we headed north to go to Australia Zoo (CRIKEY!). Aus has these rest stops that you are allowed to stay for up to 20 hours, so we found one close to the zoo and parked up for the night. Early morning, we went around to the zoo...




I tried to be a ninja like Steveo but due to the crap camera, we couldn'
t get a good action shot.




Australia zoo is very nice, big enclosures and quite natural feeling. And yes, that snake is huuuuuge! Bindi and Terri were not there, I saw them on the news (we have a tiny B/W TV that plugs into the cig lighter) that night opening some kind of whale watching endeavour in Noosa. Boy the merchandise machine is in full swing at their shop though, Crikey this, and Bindi that - I can see why some think she is being exploited. Perhaps its OK because the cash goes towards saving the crocs etc. (Crocs Reuule!)



This baby is expected to grow to 12 feet!



The Crocoseum is where they do a croc show to 5000 people (but not on a tuesday in midwinter - more like 1000). Was kinda cool, but i wish Irwin was there doing it! There was a huge memorial under this with all the letters, gifts etc sent in memory of Steve - touched lots of peoples lives ... and a few bung-holes according to south park :)



Australia zoo also had a tiger show, but theirs was better, we got to see them jumping and swimming! Very cool. The tigers didnn't like getting into the pool because their front paws are so sensitive. once their paws are wet, they jump in no problem. And don't worry, the water is heated to 28C...warm!

They didn't have all sorts of animals, mainly just Australian ones which was nice. No polar bears sweating etc. The exceptions were the Tigers (for conservation) and some Elephants. Everything else was Crocs, 'roos, birds, snakes from Aus.

Times running out, so I'll chat later. Love you all. T.