Becky's Week

After Eliza and Andrew left, we had a full week of Becky ahead of us. Because she had just spent the week driving along the coast of Queensland, she was perfectly happy to hang out around the apartment while Roxy napped. We didn't spend every day at home, though.

We drove down to visit the Daisy Hill Koala Centre and Conservation Park. I went there with Eliza and Andrew and loved it, so I took Becky there. We also wanted to spot a koala in the wild and figured it was a pretty good place to do it. It's over 400 hectares of eucaplyt bushland just south of Brisbane. The Koala Centre is one of the best free educational nature centres I've seen, and I've seen a lot in my time. We've been back a couple of times since Becky went home and I will take all of our future guests there.

Mama wallaby and her joey in the picnic area.

We struck out on seeing koalas in the bush and settled to gawk at the guys living in the educational center.

It's true! There are eucalyptus trees in Australia!

That night we took the train into town for a tour of the Castlemaine-Perkins Brewery, better known as the XXXX (Four X) Brewery. I've toured a couple of breweries and my sister has toured a few. Nate's never been on a brewery tour, and we all agreed that the Four X brewery tour is extremely bizarre. You start off in a weird room with televisions all around, and then you're ushered into a theatre in the round where illuminated statues tell the history of the brewery. Then it gets weirder... we weren't allowed to take pictures, but trust me. It was weird.

The joke is that it's called XXXX because the Queensland rubes didn't know how to spell beer. Har har.

XXXX...X

Each tour participant is entitled to four beers in the alehouse after the tour. I wasn't drinking as much as my compadres and the BBQ dinner included in our ticket was shamefully meager, so we didn't drink all 12 schooners. I think we maybe only drank 10.

The next day, Becky and I struck out for North Stradbroke Island. When I was there about three weeks earlier with Eliza and Andrew, we had a mediocre whale watching experience. This time, the waters were thick with whales! The guidebook didn't lie when it told us that Straddie is one of the best land-based whale watching sites around.

That's the splash from a breeching whale. We couldn't look out to sea without seeing a breech or tail slap or whitewater. It was awesome!

There were also plenty of body surfing dolphins.

Waiting for the waves.

We were also surprised by a big kangaroo who hopped across our path and through the playground. He gave both of us quite a start - we whipped out our cameras just in time to snap a few photos.

Well, here's something you don't see every day.

Beautiful blue waters of Straddie behind beautiful blue-eyed Becky.

The next day, we headed out to D'Aguilar National Park. We got a late start to the day (Roxy decided to take an epic nap), so we didn't get to do a lot of exploring. It was kind of a disappointment, but there are lots of other trails to investigate and we shall have to explore it further before writing it off.

The next two days were the weekend, so with Nate joining us, we decided to head south and explore more of the Gold Coast Hinterland. We had already visiting this beautiful area for my birthday back in May, so we picked a couple of different spots for day trips.

On Saturday, we stopped first at the Brisbane Markets on our way out of town to check out the produce. It wasn't nearly as good as the Cairns Market, but there were plenty of stalls full of cheap, fresh produce and we will be making it a regular weekend trip.

Aussie-grown produce. Yum!

We continued south toward Tamborine Mountain. The guidebook describes it as, "A mountaintop rainforest community." Tamborine Mountain National Park is split up into 13 sections of land scattered around the community.

Roxy telling Nate what she thinks of the new baby backpack. In case you can't tell, she wasn't a fan.

Bek and me overlooking Witches' Falls

After Witches' Falls, we visited another section of the park. Nate and Becky went hiking while I stayed behind to feed Roxy. We sat in a little picnic area with a great view of the Gold Coast. It wasn't too long before we started being circled by a brush turkey. With each circle, he got a little bit closer. It wasn't until he got a little too close for comfort that I shooshed him away and discovered that he had only one eye! It didn't win him any sympathy points - we kept our rice cakes to ourselves.

Clockwise stalking.

On Sunday, we struck out again for more of the Gold Coast hinterland. This time we went to Springbrook National Park. It's about 3500 hectares of subtropical warm and cool rainforest and eucalypt forest. Our first stop the Natural Bridge section of the park. We had a lovely picnic and hiked to a cave full of glow-worms. Too bad for us - the glow worms are best seen at night and we were there around noon. The waterfall and cave was very cool, even without the glow worms.

This used to be a swimming hole and is now fenced off. It would have been an awesome swimming hole!

"See...here's where the glow-worms are supposed to be..."

Family portrait. We reverted to the front carrier for the day to appease the bubba. She seems much happier.

Lovely Springbrook Plateau. The scenery as we drove around the park.

Before heading home, we drove up to the Best of All Lookout. The trail to the lookout goes past a stand of Nothofagus trees, so, of course, Nate stopped to have a look for some scale insects. He found some at the lookout and spent most of his time there looking closely at the leaves instead of admiring the view.

New South Wales just over that ridge.

Nate's insects in the galls on the leaves!

After an exciting weekend, Becky had just one more day in Australia. I had a mummy group meeting that morning, so I dropped Becky off at a nearby park to do some bushwalking while Roxy played with her friends. The park surrounds Mt. Gravatt, a hill that the aboriginal people called kaggur-mabul, or 'place of the echidna,' or 'the echidna rests here.' The echidnas must not have gotten the message, because she didn't see any.

It was the first day of a mini heatwave in Southeast Queensland, so we decided to beat the heat by taking a ferry ride up and down the river. We got back to our stop just as the sun was setting. It was a lovely end to the day and her visit.

Now, it's time that I address a picture of Becky making its rounds on the Internet. Lindsay snapped it when we were on the boat on the Reef:

Yes, Becky is changing Roxy's diaper. Everybody knows that Becky Does Not Change Diapers. Everybody also knows that Roxy Fills Her Diaper When Becky is Nearby. I started to change the stinky nappy, but had to abandon the task to throw up overboard. Becky stepped in like a champion and finished up the job. I know that this will never, ever happen again, so it's going on the front page of the baby book.