Day 79

After arriving in Cairns late at night, we spent the next day chilling out and looking around the area.  For their second day in Cairns we drove up and around the Atherton Tablelands.  This was my third time there, so there's some repeat photos.  Enjoy them anyway!  :)

First up was the Cathedral Fig.  We got a nice stranger from New Zealand to take a photo for us!

Next we drove to Lake Barrine, one of the big freshwater crater lakes in the Tablelands.

The view from the parking lot.

My grandmother insisted I take a photo of these.  They are pretty, and Lake Barrine has an impressive garden.

Look at these lovely ladies!

Restaurant, gift shop, and bathrooms.  It's cute!

Then we moved on to Lake Eacham, where we swam and had a lovely picnic lunch.

My grandma was a wimp and didn't get in.

Then we drove to the Millaa Millaa waterfalls loop.

It's a lovely scenic drive.

Millaa Millaa!  (Isn't that fun to say?)

We had to get out a few times to shout, because there was an excellent echo.  I'd never heard my own echo before!  I tried to get my echo with a video, but all that got recorded was me shouting stupidly.  Oh well, it was worth a try!

Jumping spiders are my favourite, they're so colourful and cute!

This spider is awesome!  Look at it!

 We tried to see tree kangaroos, but we failed to spot any and decided to make a last-ditch effort to see some cool wildlife by speeding up to Yungaburra (where my class slept in that cute backpacker lodge) to look for platypi.  And thank goodness, it was a success!

Finally the sun set and it was time to head home.  

More photos to follow soon.  There's so many, I can't even believe it.  Good thing it's been raining and I've got nothing else to do!

And don't forget to keep scrolling down for the kangaroo and fish shrubbery photos!  :)

Cheers,
Ashton

Day 77

I almost forgot--we drove around Brisbane before going to the airport!

This was the best part of Brisbane: a gigantic fish-shaped shrubbery.

Frankly there wasn't a whole lot there that impressed me, beach-wise, but I did FINALLY see kangaroos in the wild!!!  I had to jump out of a moving vehicle on the highway to get them, but I finally did it!

I've been spotted. 

Scared off the first one...

Sentry time!  See the joey on the left?

Awww!

He's awfully cute!

Now they've all spotted me.  :(

And there they go!  Unfortunately I scared them away before the rest of the family got to see them.  Sorry, guys!

I've also got a few videos!  First up are dolphins, and then koalas!

Day 76

Second day on North Stradbroke Island we ventured out of Amity over to Point Lookout.  There was a sketchy bus system that picked us up, a little 20-person unmarked bus that pulls over when you flag it.  The driver was really nice and dropped us off in the middle of nowhere to wait for another bus, which was normal sized with a really cranky driver.  But we made it to Point Lookout, and it was worth it.

I have seen a lot of nice beaches, and this is definitely near the top of the list.

Our view from the top.

We sat there for a while looking for whales, taking turns with my camera and the binoculars to look for them.  We saw quite a few of them!

Looking for whales!  And yes, that's a dropoff onto rocks about three feet ahead of me.

It's a lot steeper than it looks here!

Looking for whales.

Humpback whale!

After whale-watching we walked over to another lovely viewpoint, just a few hundred metres away.

There's people fishing down there.

It was gorgeous but I don't think I'd want to go swimming here.  Mostly because there's no way out.

Sure was beautiful though!  And the water was crystal clear!

My beautiful mama!

We had to leave Point Lookout by about 3pm, since that was when the last bus ran.  I don't know what kind of bus service ends at 3pm, but hey, whatever.  We took the bus back and went hunting for more wild koalas.  We got lucky and found a mama and baby!

We also found another pair of koalas:

And of course, we found a lot of other good wildlife too.  And by 'wildlife' I mean jumping spiders, which are by far the most adorable of all the spiders.

This spider is lime green!  How cool is that?

Okay, so this one isn't totally adorable.  He's kinda cute though, right?

This little guy was quite the model.

It's cute!  You know it is.

C'mon, look at that face.

Look at it closer.  It's adorable, admit it!

And there was more!

"Help!  I'm drowning!"  (This is a rubber floor mat, actually.)

My obligatory artsy insect photo.  C'mon, he's cool.  Beetles are great because they're big and harmless!

It's an osprey!

I figured out what this guy is: a white-bellied sea eagle!

No idea what kind of bird this is, but they were everywhere on the island.

This is a Little Wattlebird.  Yep, real name.

He looks a bit... intimidating.

That wraps it up for North Stradbroke Island!  Next up is Far North Queensland.

And for those who have had difficulty posting comments, it should be cake now.  When you are typing your comment, there is a little box below that says "Comment as:" with a dropbox next to it.  From the dropbox you can select your google account if you have one, OR you can write your name with the "Name/URL" option (you can leave the URL part blank), or you can comment anonymously.  If you choose to post anonymously or with the name/url option, you will have to do the CAPTCHA thing--but everyone should have a google account anyway!  So no more griping about how hard it is, got it?  :)

Cheers,
Ashton

P.S.  Don't forgot to scroll down for photos of baby dolphins!