Monday, January 17, 2011

Holiday Adventures.

We ventured down to the Sunny Coast for a holiday over the Christmas break to catch up with Mr Fishes side of the family (and only just made it back before the highway was cut at several places). The Fishes nanny is a dedicated wildlife carer (she was awarded a pride of Australia medal in 2010 for her many years of looking after little furry and feathered critters) so they are always excited to go for a visit and help feed whatever is in residence. Oldest fish is especially taken with feeding the wallabies and can now feed two at a time, a feat she was rather proud of.
Littlest fish seemed to enjoy having staring competitions with the wallabies just before feeding time.
We had promised the little fishes a trip to Australia Zoo on our trip and despite it raining A LOT we managed to get a day of light drizzle (not technically rain) and so off we went!
Littlest fish was happy to sit on the tail of a giant crocodile sculpture and look happy but despite being quite alright with walking all over it, oldest fish was not keen to have her photo taken. At all. She pulled what can only be described as a rather evil looking, scrunched up face and we put the camera away.
She was however quite happy to let me take a picture of her feeding an elephant.
We also got to see the show at the Crocoseum and after watching Bindi sing many, many, many songs (the young girls loved it but all the men in the audience looked like they would rather feed a crocodile or catch a snake or something) we got to watch Terri feed a croc. The Irwin's were all there and were in the show (and Wes, can't forget him) which is pretty good considering they are not there all that often, so we timed this visit well.
The little fishes got a puppet theatre for Xmas which they LOVED. We had to watch lots and lots of puppet shows put on by all the kids (some not so small ones as well) and it was a big hit. It was quite funny watching them as the storyline was quite similar in all the shows that were put on one after the other by the little kids. They seemed to take whatever the first show was about and run with it.
Both the fishes were very taken with Lulu the possum who was a very patient little thing and let them pick her up and have cuddles all the time. We had to hear about Lulu tickling little fishes tummy about 1000 times.
They both loved feeding the wallabies and even though it took longer than normal and little fish had to be constantly reminded to hold her bottle up so they could get the milk, the wallabies were all lovely and didn't complain too much.
Lulu and her biggest fan.
Lulu trying to get in on the wallabies dinner.
We had a lovely time and got to see all the other fishes and even though it rained nearly every day, all day, we managed to have fun and play in the mud. Our trip home was decided rather suddenly when we saw the flood waters making their way towards Rocky and after checking the RACQ website to find out if the highway was open at GinGin (which it was not previously) we decided to make a run (drive?) for it.
It was lucky we decided to as we made it home late that afternoon and the highway has been closed at various locations up til today. So despite driving past some very flooded areas (not over the road, mostly paddocks) we were very glad to get home and not be stuck on the highway somewhere with two little fishes. We had decided to try and make it home and if we struck water anywhere over the road then we were just gonna turn around and head back again. (It is not cool to drive through floodwater, you just end up needing rescuing and heaven knows, the rescue people are busy enough). So we have been at home and watching the horrible floods destroying whole towns out west and submerging our states capital city. The waters in Rockhampton are only just starting to recede now (think two weeks with your house under water) and the clean up there has only just begun. It will take our state many, many months (probably years) to get things back to some sort of normal again but the willingness of complete strangers to lend a hand and shovel mud for hours to clean up someones yard and house that they don't even know will surely get our state through this. The huge number of volunteers that have been out in force helping to make things just that little bit easier for people who have lost everything has to be something that we will remember for a long, long time.
Don't forget to hop on over to Make it perfect to check out the master list of bloggy peeps having auctions and raffles to raise money for the flood relief appeal. There are some amazing things on offer and all the proceeds will go to the flood relief appeal to help people get their lives back to some kind of normal.
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3 comments:

  1. I am certain that we past each other on the road - did you see a crazy family with a camper trailer and a sea kyack on the roof??? We did the same thing - saw that he road was open on Friday morning and packed up the car. Did not even get to see your Mum:(

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  2. I know! I felt a bit lost as we kind of made the decision to leave late on Thursday and frantically packed the car up ready for early Friday. We didn't relax until we got past Rocky, you could feel the stress in the car. I'm sure we would have passed you somewhere!

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  3. Hi Joely,
    Love all your new work. It all looks wonderful. I would love to have half your talent. Can't wait to see it all in person.

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