Zoos, Markets & Diving, Noosa

After two nights of everyone suffering from hay fever in the caravan... yesterday was the day to get into spring cleaning the van while Richard took the kids to Australia Zoo.
I had done 7 loads of washing, made 4 beds (including those bloody bunk beds which are a back breaker) by midday, mopped floors and had the van looking pretty spic & span by the time Richard arrived home around 4ish.

Australia Zoo

The general consensus was that Australia Zoo was no where near as good as Taronga Zoo but they had all learnt lots of little bits and pieces of interesting information.... Like,
- turtles live in water and tortoises live on land.
- an elephant can't drink out of its truck it uses its trunk as a straw then puts the water into its mouth.
- lots of kangaroos is called a mob
- birds can't fly with wet wings
- a camels hump contains lots of fat & water in case they can't find food or drink  in the desert.

This photo is for you Scotty

The mother of all crocs

The kids have some fun 

One of the mob

So there you go... who needs school?
The kids didn't get to meet Bindi because it was her day off and Richard is still complaining about how expensive it was... so all in all, a great day.
The evening was an early one, Richard was going diving the next day while the kids and I were off to the Eumundi Markets.

This morning,Wednesday the 8th of August, Richard was up bright and early and off on his diving trip while the kids and I caught a bus to the local markets which operate on a Wednesday and Saturday.
The Eumundi markets, about 20 kilometres out of Noosa, started in 1979 with 3 stalls... today on two days of each week, it takes over the entire town with hundreds of stalls and attracting around 15 000 tourists to the town on any given market day.
The markets were endless... we stopped mid-way for lunch and to catch up with one of our old Wwoofers Gary from Taiwan - who lived on our farm in Harvey for 3 months, he had made the trip from Brisbane, north to Noosa, to catch up with us.  After 3 hours we were ready to head back to the van.

One lane at the Eumundi markets

It wasn't long before Richard arrived home with photos from his dive off the wreck HMAS Brisbane, which was sunk 7 years ago off the Sunshine Coast...

A Lion fish in all it's glory

Can you spot the Stone fish?

A collection of sponges

Inside HMAS Brisbane 35 metres down

Part of HMAS Brisbane's boiler room

He rated the dive an 8 out of 10 and enjoyed the experience and was also happy that he'd passed his Nitrox dive ticket and completed 50% of his advanced wreck diving ticket.

Around 4, Gary and his girlfriend Karen arrived to catch up for a drink with Richard and I. They stayed for an hour or so and we caught up on each other's experiences since Gary left Sunnyvale at Christmas last year. It was lovely to catch up with him and to meet Karen who is from Hong Kong.

Gary & Karen with the kids

Tonight, was another catch up with the Branson's, more red wine and more chatter, before we pack up and leave in the morning to head further north.