Exploring Australia - 2014: 3 - 6 October 2014

We left Tambourine Mountain for a short drive to the Gold Coast where we checked into the Big 4 Treasure Island caravan park. This park is a kids paradise with water games, jumping pillows and peddle carts. We relaxed and did some shopping and chores.

In the morning we went to Surfers Paradise for breakfast and looked around the beaches before heading back to the caravan. At the last minute Vlasta decided she wanted to do a whale watching cruise so off we went to Sea World and Keith headed back to the caravan to relax as he was not prepared to pay to get seasick!

As it was Yom Kippur we could not see Barry and Di until the Sunday so off we went to have lunch with them in their appartment overlooking Surfers Paradise and the residential waterways in the area. What magnificent views and lovely place to live on the 15th floor above all the traffic and holiday makers. We spent the whole afternoon chatting and really enjoying our time together but the time really flew by far too quickly.

The next day we spent at Sea World where we enjoyed the dolphin show (twice), polar bears, birds, fish, sharks and penguins. The penguin house brought back memories of our Antarctic cruise 11 years ago but at the same time we were very sad to see these penquins locked in a refrigerated room in a sub-tropical city. There were two species of penguins. The King penguin which we did not see in Antarctica, is a magnificent bird with beatiful colouring but quite forlorn. The Gentoo penguin was very familiar to us and the females were sitting on eggs while the males were collecting stones to line the nest. People could pay for a penguin encounter where they sat in the penguin house and handed stones to the male Gentoo penguins who strutted off to add them to their nests. After a long day we headed back to the caravan to prepare to leave in the morning.