The deep blue sea!

Hey folks

What an adventure we have been having this week. We finally arrived in Cairns and trusty Thundercat got us there in one piece apart from one burst tyre, so she has done us well. We checked the spare tyre which was bald and Gav managed to break the small wrench!! Thankfully we had another wrench which handled the pressure. The other one was called a certain name by Gav which I don't think I will repeat. I don't think I helped the situation as I was sniggering behind him. We are very sad that we have to sell our trusty steed but we have met a nice Italian man who seems as thrilled with her as we are so hopefully that will work out. If not the scrapers are awaiting her beautiful parts. We think Thundercat knows it is her last weekend with us as everything that is slightly not working is miraculously working again, eg, central locking and automatic windows!!

This week has involved loads of swimming and snorkelling in the beautiful blue seas of the Whitsundays and the great barrier reef off Cairns. On the Whitsundays cruise boat we did some sailing around the islands and visited the famous whitehaven beach.
Whitehaven Beach

Us mucking around!


We also had our first snorkelling experience which proved delightful. I took to the waters much better than I ever thought I would. The snorkelling allowed us practice for our big trip to the outer reef in Cairns.
All ready to go


The trip to the outer reef was out of this world. We would recommend this to anyone and you can't come to Australia and not do this. It was like a different world under the ocean, so peaceful and filled with the most beautiful fish. It was like swimming through an aquarium with crystal clear water. We are going to pick up our photos today so hopefully they will have turned out good. Since they are not digital we won't be able to post them but we will include them in our 9 hour slideshow on our return. (Tickets being sold now, money in advance please!!!). We saw so many fish and the coral was so brightly coloured, shades of pink, blue, orange, yellow and green all silently waiting to be admired. We saw huge giant clams, cuttle fish, a ray and loads of other fish which I have no idea of what they are called. The real bonus (for Gav) involved seeing a Black Tip Reef Shark! Crikey! I saw it first and alerted Gav by squealing, which in water is pretty difficult to do. We were so impressed we both actually started to swim after it but it disappeared in to the deep blue ocean which is probably quite good as I am not sure what I would have done had it turned round. hee hee. Well at least all I would have had to do was swim faster than Gav! It was like a ghost just silently moving through the water and was pretty impressive at 2m long. The dive crew told us we were very lucky to see it as they are being killed faster than they can reproduce.

We have also had a trip to explore the Atherton Tablelands which are the mountains behind Cairns. We heard a rumour that Australia had animals that couldn't kill you and so we went off in search of them. We found them at the butterfly sanctuary. What a delight it was to walk through a natural habitat where butterflies roamed free. As you can see some are quite tame and one came and landed on my hand. I was very pleased to say the least!



We also went to visit the Curtain Fig Tree which is a huge mass of vines that have overtaken one tree and strangled it.

The last few days will be spent in the deep jungle looking for crocs!! Hope you are all well and enjoying the spring weather.

Crikey Crocs!

G'Day ya little rippers

Gav and Jess here reporting back safe and sound from Steve Irwin's Zoo. We had a great time at the zoo, but it was just a shame that as we walked around we knew that Steve was no longer there. However we were really impressed at the zoo and we kicked the day off by hand feeding elephants. The keepers brought out three elephants and introduced them to the kids (as it was school holidays when we were there) and invited the kids to line up to feed them. Jess and i managed to go up 5 times each (It's amazing how you can fool Australians just by walking up on your knees!).
Jess feeding an elephant
Then we went to the famous croc show that we have all seen on TV where the zoo people get in right beside the crocs and get them to jump out of the water for food. This was done in crystal clear water and it just showed you how silently and easily the crocs can creep up on you without you knowing they are even there.
Croc show!
It seems foolish now and its probably something you would only do when young and stupid, but we left the show and made our way to the other croc enclosure full of courage. Jess and I decided to throw all caution to the wind and ran straight up to the fence at where a croc was lying only a matter of feet away......I really can't believe we did this and got away with it...........we smiled at a crocodile! All we have ever been taught and warned against was ignored! Actually we could see what the whole fuss is about as just as we started our smiling the croc opened its mouth at us. At this we decided to call it quits and look at the other animals. We would recommend anyone to go to the zoo but we don't encourage any showing of affection in anyway to the crocs.
Highly risky wildlife encounter
Also during our stay in Brisbane we had a couple of day trips to the glass house mountains and Noosa. After leaving Brisbane we drove inland 10 hours to Carnarvan National Park (yes we did it in one day, and Mr McKinley decided it was good preparations to stay up to 3.30am the night before to watch the football. For all you fact fans out there Man Utd beat Arsenal 2-1). Here in the National park is a beautiful gorge that you can walk up and see Aboriginal hand paintings on cave walls and lots of wildlife.
Aboriginal cave paintings
Just beside were we were camping there was a resident Platypus. These little creatures can only be found in Oz and any chance to see one is worth a shot. Unfortunately during our time there we didn’t get the chance to see the wee man, however in a National Park further north we read that there was a better chance to see these elusive little critters! So team McKinley set off on the hunt for a Platypus and now we can happily report that we have seen three! In order to do this we took Thundercat off road and through some water passes! Ok they were a little tame but it was still quite exciting and it makes us sad that in a couple of weeks we are going to have to say goodbye to the old girl.
Thunder cat offroad (well sort of!)
We both say that if she could pass as hand luggage we would bring her home! Normally Platypus spend the day in their burrows sleeping and come out at night to play and hunt, but at this place they appear around 3pm so it makes it easier to see them. To get the best pictures i could i had to scramble along the bank in my flip flops and sit on a tree over the water. As I was doing this I looked up to see Jess on the other bank mouthing "Be careful!" I pretended i couldn't see her, which forced her to try and give me her "Mum eyes" along with another be careful warning. As i was out of lethal range i carried on and managed to get these pictures. They arent really the best and i have done my best with them but hopefully you can see it's beak, flippers and rubbery tail!
A Platypus!
Being in the State of Queensland, which is the tropical area, the wildlife has got a little more interesting! So much so you can't really go near water without seeing a sign warning you not to swim or go near the edge as there are crocodiles living in the area! The campsite that we stayed at the other night was beside a river and there was a sign right beside where we camped warning us of the dangers! How cool is this! But don't worry I showed common sense and took all necessary precautions to gaurd against danger (I made sure Jess was sleeping on the side of the tent closest to the river).
A delightful little place to set up camp
Well over the next couple of weeks we are going to go for a trip around the Whitsunday Islands; go for a trip out to the Great Barrier reef and up to the Daintree National Park, So hopefully we should gets lots more great pictures. We really feel blessed to see such amazing scenery and experience some awesome wildlife close up. Time feels that it is going so fast but we are trying our best to make it all count. Unfortunately over the past week Jess has been down with a bad cold, but before you send get well messages she is on the mend, i imagine i have had something to do with this as i kindly pointed out that what she was going through was nothing compared to Man Flu. It's good to put everything into perspective.

We will try and post a blog soon and let you know what other adventures we have got up to. Hope you are all well and are enjoying the current football season (it's turning out to be a cracker!).

Gav and Jess

Stars and Snakes

G'day mates

Our Australian adventure is well under way again and we are making our way up to Cairns in our trusty steed. Our journey began in the Warrenbungle National Park (yet another place that a two year old seems to have named). It was a long drive to get there and yet again the McKinleys somehow found themselves putting up a tent in pitch dark. After 3 months of camping you would think we would work out when the sun goes down. However, it wasn't a total disaster arriving in the dark as there were hundreds of kangaroos who came out to witness our arrival. In Australia the warrenbungles is the best place for observation of stars due to the number of clear nights they have a year. The perfect place to do some bush walking and star gazing. The bush walking was spectacular as there were all these old volcanic rock formations that we could walk to the top of, slightly tiring but worth every bit of effort. It is harder to walk in Australia as it can be pretty hot! We went out with an astronomer one night and he had these huge telescopes that enabled us to look at Mars, Saturn (with her rings!!!) and the craters of the moon. Cool or what?!

The view over some of the Warrenbungles from the top!

Us at the top

Skippy


We then had a good few days at various beaches and took on the waves. We celebrated our anniversary in style at a 4 star bed and breakfast. (Jess refused to camp!) It was good though as we were treated like royalty and had these huge cooked breakfasts.

We then went to Mount Warning National Park which is the first place the sun hits in Australia as it rises. A gruelling climb takes you to the top where you are met with sheer rock face and a chain at the side to pull yourself up the last 500 metres. A bit different to hill walking at home... The view from the top shows you the contrast of where you are and where we were going to be in the next couple of days. Far in the distance we could see the high rises of the Gold Coast, which for anyone who hasn't heard of this before is the Miami of Australia. The high rises are built right on the beach edge and in the late afternoon they actually block the sun out! Anyway, before we left for the city we thought we would have one last encounter with the wildlife and went to a snake show that was being held in our campsite. They guy who ran the show turned out to be a real life Steve Irwin who looked like Billy Connolly (strange or what!) For just over 1 british pound each we had the potential to be killed by the 5 most deadliest snakes in the world. We thought this was money well spent. Gav held a python which isn't deadly but is still big! The scary thing was the guy told us that all these snakes are common to the bush area... crikey, we were walking in it the day before without a care. After leaving the snake show we were very careful where we took each step.

Top of Mount Warning with high rises in the distance (if you look closely)

Billy Connolly look-a-like and Gav


We are now staying just above Brisbane and this week a trip to the Glasshouse Mountains and Steve Irwin's Zoo are on the cards. I am sure the next blog will be full of Steve Irwin phrases and pictures of crocodiles.