There is a very large selection of things to try and so much of it looks good. Both kids start with a small bowl of different kinds of breakfast cereal. Then I make Kailey eggs on toast, one of her favorites. Nate enjoys a fresh omelet made to order. We all decide to be brave and try Vegemite on toast since they offer it in a jar near the toaster…but we wont be doing that again, ha!
"Dink it and sink it!"
There's lots of normal selections like toast and cereal, but also every type of egg; fried, poached, scrambled, hard boiled, and omelets. Plus bacon, sausage, fruit etc. We even try Lamingtons, which is a sponge cake covered in a thin glaze and covered in coconut (they have strawberry and chocolate). They have other good pastries to try as well. Since it is an all you can eat buffet, we eat quite a lot, getting our money's worth.
The pink square is the Lamington
After breakfast we go back up to the room for a while and I work on this blog for a bit, and the kids play some games while we wait for the Queensland's museum to open. This time we take a new direction to a different bridge across the river. The museum is free to visit with a couple of special exhibits that you can pay if you want to see. However it's Spring Break in Australia so all the extra shows are sold out for the day.
The main thing we want to see is a dinosaur bones exhibit. It is rather small compared to the Museum of Natural History in New York, but still interesting and cool.
This is a 3d printed replica of an Australovenator wintonensis
Giant Temonospondyl fossil
Muttaburrasaurus langdoni
Ichthyosaur
Leg of a Rhoetosaurus brownei compared to Nate
They also have exhibits showing all kids of animals, birds, bugs, marine life etc. that you find in and around Australia. There are so many amazing things to see.
It only takes about an hour to get through all we want to see, then we try figure out what to do next, as that is all I have on my pre-planned agenda.
The only Great White shark we are hoping to see on this trip. This is a young 2-3 year old female.
Kookaburras
Kailey by a Bilby in foreground and Yellow-footed Rock-wallaby in the background
The Gouldian Finch has so many bright colors!
Block of blue Azurite (a copper carbonate) and white kaolin (a soft clay)
Nate wants to take a public transit train out towards the coast for something different to do. After research we discover we can use our credit cards to just tap on and off the public transportation. Since we have enough cards for each of us to use a unique card, we don't have to pay for a special transportation card.
Cool old building amongst the modern high rise buildings. This one is a college.
All Aboard!
I find a bakery in the town we were going to travel to that sells meat pies, which is something people say you should try when going to Australia. The shop is very small with only a couple of little round tables just outside the doors with seating for maybe 8 total. Since we still aren't that hungry after eating our big breakfast, we decide to share two pies. Nate and Landon share a steak and cheese, and Kailey and I had an Original Minced, which is meat in a gravy. We all agree it was pretty good. Not something I would go out of my way to eat, but still pretty good. We also share two dessert pies, and we let the kids pick the flavors. Those were even better received!
Original Minced Pie
Steak and Cheese Pie
Carmel Pie
Nutella Pie
We then walk a few blocks out to the water where we find several huge pelicans by the boat launch. It’s amazing just how big these birds really are. We spend the next couple hours walking along the beach, and letting the kids play on playgrounds. There are a couple of jetties that go out into the water. One is pretty wide with a sidewalk on it so we walk out to have a look. There is a guy with a fishing pole and I ask him if he's having any luck. He says he hasn't tried this spot yet, but he caught a couple of small squid in a bay nearby this morning.
There are so many huge trees in parks, they are so amazing!
Close up of the little branches above, and the (pine cones?) below
5 years ago we couldn't get this girl to touch the sand! No joke, she would try climb on top of me to not touch the sand, and would cry or complain if a single grain of sand was on her, and now it's her happy place!
The sand was very fine and soft
Lots of shells are home to animals, including very venomous ones, so no touching or collecting.
Pandanus tectorius (screw pine)
Even in a playground full of kids a mother knows the cry of her baby. So when I hear Kailey start crying I get up and run in that direction. Unfortunately Kailey slipped on a climbing wall and landed hard on one of the handholds. She's going to have a nasty bruise on her thigh as it is starting to get purple already. We decide it's time to leave and head back towards the hotel.
See this No Junk Mail sticker on many mail boxes and wonder if it actually works
This plant looks like it's growing a banana
The share size bag of M&M's is around 60% of the US size
We head toward our hotel to drop off our bag of things, and then go to Hungry Jacks for dinner. in the 1970s a guy named Jack Cowin wanted to open a franchise of Burger King in Australia, but there was already a restaurant with that name in Australia, so they decided to call it Hungry Jacks instead to avoid trademark disputes. They operated in partnership for around 30 years, but then Burger King wanted to expand itself into Australia (after the Burger King name was available to use because the other place closed down) and they had to go to court. Hungry Jacks won out, and so you'll only find Hungry Jacks in Australia. All the bags, and packaging, and even their logo looks the same as Burger King, only it says Hungry Jacks instead. They also sell things like a Whopper.
View from the pool deck of our hotel on the 16th floor.
The food is pretty good, but now it’s time to walk back to the hotel to start getting ready for bed.
We are all excited for tomorrows adventure.
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