Australia: Tin Can Dolphins

Tin Can Bay was off the radar for us until David came back one day and related to us about this place where we can actually feed wild dolphins for free! only drawback is, the place is about 3 hours drive away... and we actually should be there before 8am in the morning!... after mulling it over for a few minutes we thought it would be pretty much worth it to drive over since I can drive over in Oz also so there's a backup driver if needs be...

Route to Tin Can Bay

Tin Can Bay is located along the Fraser Coast in Queensland, up north from Brisbane. So we hit off at abt 445am in the morning... the drive up there is pretty, catching the sunrise and superb landscape scenery along the way... upon reaching Tin can Bay we took sometime to locate the place and there was a small crowd gathered there already... which means the dolphins was there!

Tin Can Bay Dolphin Centre

The 2 dolphins, Mystique and Patch...

According to news and the story that was related by the operators, the whole phenomenon started of about 30 years back when they found Mystique's mum called "Scarry" pretty much injured and beat up, so they sort of nursed it to health and ever since then it's been coming over... "scarry" hasn't been since around here since 2003, but ever since then her offspring "Mystique" has been coming over and recently with his girlfriend "Patch"...

Mystique and Patch, feeding time...

Patch (dolphin on the left) and Mystique (dolphin on the right)

From far it's a little difficult to distinguish both dolphins from each other, but upon closer inspection, you can see there's much more wounds and injury marks on Mystique's body. Being the alpha male of the pod of 5, there are territorial battles, and predator attacks that he has to endure. Looking at the dorsal fins and the tails you can see chunks of it taken out, and according to the operators there, it was due to a bull shark attack one of the fisherman's over there witnessed about 2 years back. Besides that, there's a lot of deep scratches all around the body and quite a notable scar on his blowhole...

Patch... quite clear and smooth lines around...

Mystique and his battle scars...

Patch showing off her belly...

Being the Malaysian jakun... even before we were allowed to feed the dolphins I stepped into the river estuary with some others... and found out why only a few ppl are in the waters then... it was really COLLLLLLLLDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD. You really won't feel it much until you actually step out and my legs really went numb. We had to step out of the waters to get our hands cleaned with sanitized water and to collect the fish to be fed to the dolphins.

Feeding the dolphins with some fishy snacks..

Pelicans wanting a piece of the pie!

Feeding the dolphins...

Another sight to behold... the pelicans there are the biggest I've seen. They're really huge and scary. The adult one's are bigger and taller than my niece... and I actually saw a pelican nearly biting a kid... maybe it was something the kid was holding... but u can bet the kid freaked out and started crying his lungs out... :P

Am I Big or really big?

Pelicans dancing to the master... :P

Breakfast at Barnacles Cafe @ Tin Can Bay Dolphin Centre

It was a pretty and pleasant experience. Coming up close and personal with wild dolphins, I definitely recommend this to anyone of you that's heading to Brisbane!

Australia: Ekka '08

What's Ekka? It's one of those classic Aussie fascination with shortening long English words... basically Ekka is derived from the word Brisbane Exhibition (huh? what derivation??) ... which is also formally known as the Royal Queenland Show. It's an annual event that's held in Brisbane for 10 days!. It's a pretty massive event and economic generator that there's a public holiday declared for it to enable families to go over and spend their monies... :D

The Brisbane Exhibition Ground

The first show started off in 1876, and it's main idea was to show off agricultural and industrial stuff, together with other farm animals like big fat cattles, ugly turkeys and also the cute baby farm animals. One thing of interest to note, although there were many farm animals thsat were on display, there's hardly any animal smell eventhough these animals are placed indoors and the waste is displayed in full glory for the public!

Char siew and suckling pigs... :D

How would you like it? Rare, medium or well done?

KFC-select-your-chicken-menu... :P

Lamb steak or fried chicken?

No this can't be eaten...

Fruit Display Competition

Try finishing this pumpkin yerself!....

Anyway, I don't think modern city bred kids give two hoots about agriculture. Give them a WII or PSP anytime. I'm pretty much sure the kids are attracted to the "sideshow alley". The term pretty much explains itself... and this is where the EKKA comes big. You can get pretty much all the thrill rides in Genting over here like roller coasters and sky rides. There's also Ghost house, cooking class for kids and plenty of game booths around....

The crowd at Ekka

Ferris wheel and other thrill rides...

Game booths...

Cooking class for kids too!

The main attraction for my niece is pretty much simple. DORA Goodie Bag. Since the day I came she's been harping about the goodie bag she's getting. Basically it's known as "Show Bags" in Ekka. Historically it started out as sample bags distributed by the farmers and vendors over the exhibition hall, but right now it's a huge commercial market with each bags costing in the range of AUD10-20.

Various Vendors and their Showbag Stalls...

My niece kitted out with her Showbag stuff... Dora Brolly, Hat and Bag.

It was pretty much an interesting day out. After spending about a good 6 hours over there we made our way to Sunshine Coast... more pics on that later... below more pics... till then... G'day...

Wood chopping competition

Lost Kids... was a pretty long line too!

Australia:The 'wow' factor

Brisbane and Gold Coast have pretty much to offer to holiday makers and with me being the lazy bum, I actually didn't plan any places to go and just thought I would tag along wherever my sis goes.. haha... Hmmm no actually... I did plan where NOT to go... Movie World and Dream World. Wasn't to keen on the thrill rides and walking in a place full of cartoon/movie characters.... haha... would prefer something that's natural, unique and it's not a modern day man-made marvel.

Anyway being in Brisbane/Gold Coast area you really can miss out on this: Whale Watching. I would say it was pretty much one of the highlights of my trip. David picked up a brochure while in Gold Coast about this company that runs whale watching cruises out of Gold Coast. There was another one that runs out of Radcliffe but with a bigger boat and lunch thrown in... however with a higher cost too!

After looking through the website I decided to go with the Whales In Paradise cruise company (http://www.whalesinparadise.com.au/), they had quite a good price and the run out from Nerang River which also would past the houses of the rich and famous along the Gold Coast Canal. As I'm going for the cruise alone I paid for the ride to and fro from Brisbane which cost a total of AUD125.... and once at Gold Coast we Boarded the boat which they called the "mahi-mahi". There were about 40 others on the boat and as we cruise along the Nerang River you can pretty much see hte lives of the rich and famous.... besides the huge mansions, boats, jetskis that's lined up you can actually find helicopters by it too... you know... sometimes ya need some groceries, and the traffic's pretty bad, ya need to tow ur kids along... juz hop on the chopper at the backdoor.... *grin*....

Whitehouse wannabe along the river

Riverfront properties

Gold Coast City

Can you spot the helicopter?... supposedly owned by a car SALESMAN...

Enough oogling at the properties... OFF to hunt for the whales!...

From the mouth of the Nerang River we headed out towards the open sea for about 1/2 an hour. The waters were crystal clear and I enjoyed the ride out... we came to a stop after spotting a pod of whales and soon you hear the "ooohhhhhhhs" and "ahhhhhhhssss" and people scrambling from the left to the right and from the front to the back of the boat to catch a better view... yea... myself included! hahaha.

2 humpback whales swimming along...

It's not all the time that the whales appear and sometimes we would have to sort of locate where they are and while waiting they would run some commentaries on the life of these humpback whales, latest research results and stuff like that. Oh yea... make sure that you do not have motion sickness! or take those pills before hitting the seas! A couple of tourist just turned green when the boat stopped and start rolling along with the waves... :P

The humpback whale showing off it's tail...

It was pretty difficult to catch good shots, especially when the whale does a massive breach... by the time you see it, put up your camera, auto focus it... it's long gone back in the waters... I manage to catch only one, the rest were pretty much splashes of water...

Breaching and falling on it's back... awesome stuff!

Spying on us!...

On the last pic, although it looks like a distance... but it was pretty near the boat actually... and what an experiecnce it was! I was just right at the right side of the boat looking down and suddenly a big white shadow just approach from the bottom push it's head above the water, and slowly sink down again... everyone was like..." woaaaaaaaaa"....

Anyway that was the last shot of the day before we head back to Gold Coast. It was pretty much a magnificent experience and I would actually recommend anyone who's there to just hop on a boat and have a whale of a time... :)

There's not much pretty pics over here but go on to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpback_whale and there's some clearer shots and cool information on the humpbacks... till the next round of updates!... G'day

Australia: Australia Zoo (Part 2)

I actually didn't plan at all for this holiday. It just so happened that one day in my conversation with my sis, she said she wanted to bring Shannon to the Australia Zoo as they have some discount coupons and asked whether I wanna go. So I just gave a quick check on how many work leave that I have and decided to go!...

The ticket price was covered by the Frequent Flyer Miles I have with MAS, but the airport tax and fuel surcharge that I have to pay came up to nearly the same amount! So after frantically finding for seats (mostly booked as it's a peak season)... manage to get one... and had to go all the way to MAS office and pay it...

So, you can say the main motivation was to go to Australia Zoo and to play with my niece :P... haha, anyway here goes part 2...

Much of the time in Australia Zoo was spent in "crocoseum"... think of the word as a derivative of colloseum rahter than museum ok!

The crocoseum with a huge LCD display

The "arena" where humans and animals battle out... or more like the crocs get bullied!

The crocoseum spectators... no cheering, just eating!

There were a number of animals on show, and the main idea of the shows is basically to drive home the idea of conservation and becoming a "wildwife warrior", some highlights of the show was having exotic birds flying around, crocodile feeding and stuff... anyway some of the pics below...

Jumbos Galore

Spot the flying macaw...

Can you hear the croc sing... I believe I can fly

There were several stuff prepared mainly for kids.. they have this kids zoo where you have young farm animals being displayed and the kids can go over and pet them... besides that there's the usual playground and also some "special" rides...

The Kids Zoo...

The Playground

The Special Ride... :P

Last but not least they have a special space dedicated as a Steve Irwin tribute... I'm not sure if it's a permanent fixture but it was nice to see that he is still fondly remembered by the public. There were many tributes all around, mainly written on the Australia Zoo uniform popularized by him, pictures paintings of him and small crocodiles laid all around... so here's to Steve Irwin... the Original Wildlife Warrior...

Penned Shirts...

Pictorial Tributes...

Till the next installment... G'day...