Sleeping in to 10:00 am left us lazy and relaxed. After a late breakfast, the kids hit the pool while we waded through entirely too much information. We have pages and pages of advice and too many brochures to count. As the morning passed we firmed up our itinerary and then spent the afternoon enjoying a bottle of wine on the beach. The beach was amazing but, since it was crocodile mating and stinger (jellyfish) season, we weren't allowed to swim in the ocean. Between cold weather, rip tides, flies, jellyfish, and now horny crocs, Australia is not really impressing us in regards to its beaches!

After tuna casserole for supper (the leftovers going to four starving, backpacking girls from Britain), we played cards with the family from Grand Forks. That was a lot of fun.

At 7:30 pm, we headed out on a two and a half hour night walk and crocodile spotting trip. We were very excited to find out what was out there - well, Tessa, not so much. We drove to our starting point and got out to see before us a forest trail - not a dirt or paved trail - but a trail of leaves that had been stomped on. We all grabbed a torch (flashlight) and our guide, Hans, gave us a quick run-down of what was out there. He said that nothing is potentially dangerous or poisonous in that area (hmmm) and that if we all stayed quiet, we would be fine. We all flicked on our flashlights and headed into an unknown adventure. We saw crickets right away, which made Tessa feel a bit queasy, but we continued along. We spotted a few little frogs and our guide was great at telling us all about them. He had come to Australia in 1952 from Holland, so Connor and Tessa noticed the familiar accent right away. We continued down the trail and we spotted a couple of sleeping birds and a Forest Dragon lizard, which was snoozing on a high branch. We arrived back at the van about 2 hours after we started, feeling good that we all survived. We then headed down to the creek for our crocodile spotting activity. At first, we all slowly started down the trail, standing behind our guide. He shone the light, but we saw nothing, which disappointed the boys but relieved Tessa. We then spotted 2 eyes that turned into 4, then 6 and Tessa thinks she saw 8. We all watched as these white eyeballs blinked curiously across the creek. At that point, we left to walk along the creek, slowly and cautiously. Tessa did not feel good and her flashlight was slowly dying. We then all turned off our flashlights and looked at the stars, which Tessa, once again, said made her scared. After all, we were right next to a croc filled creek! At last, we returned to the main part of the creek and Tessa was happy to see that the crocodiles had vanished. We got in the van and drove away with great nighttime, nature stories. To sum it up, Margaret said that we spotted far too many night dwellers to dwell upon, and Margaret and Tessa continue to prefer to believe that everything sleeps at night!