Thursday 8th august

Susie decided we should take a day off today, and planned to take us to a couple of local attractions. We set off bright and early to get to Walkabout Creek – a small centre run by the Australian wildlife division, containing a number of Australian animals, reptiles and birds. We were especially looking forward to seeing the Platypus and Quolls. The platypus had been busy agitating the water making photos impossible (at least if you wanted to be able to pick him out of the final version), and the quolls seemed to be on holiday as their enclosure was being renovated. So you will just have to take my word for it that there is a platypus there, and i can't really tell you anything about the quolls. Not to be outdone by wildlife we headed to the Daisy Hill Koala centre- based in a National park on the south side of Brisbane. Here we were able to see an informative exhibition about the koala and four live Koalas- although i still haven’t managed to see any in the wild- despite sucking all the eucalyptus sweets.

It was a lovely sunny day and we had brought cake, biscuits and coffee so decided to picnic in the park. Settling down at the wooden table we poured out the coffee before tucking into the goodies. John was enjoying an Anzac biscuit and in full flight on some subject or other when there was something else in full flight which tore down between the three of us and snatched Johns anzac biscuit from his fingers. Turned out to be a kookaburra which took great delight in then watching John in anticipation of a return match. Needless to say John was then a bit twitchy after that and nearly fell off the bench a couple of times when the birds knocked leaves down.

We rounded off the day by collecting Andrew (John’s son) from Ashmore and heading home to Dayboro before a night out at the carvery evening in Woodford, with Peter, Susie, and Andrew. Have to admit it was the first time i have been out for a meal and the place has emptied ready for closing at 9. Apparently round these parts everywhere closes early and the town is dead after about 9 so you need to move quickly if you are late in from work. The towns round here are very much traditional frontier style towns, with lots of vintage and retro shops, and lots of evidence of home crafts.