(Day 9, cont'd) We can officially add a koala to our wildlife list. At Magnetic Island, we rented a miniature car for the four of us to cruise around the island for the afternoon. I'll post pictures so you all can see how ridiculous we looked! It was actually a manual car, so it was quite an experience to drive not only on the left side of the road and on the right side of the car, but shifting the gears with your left hand!! Karl started off driving and he looked funny trying to fit into the car, being so lanky and such. After our hike, I drove a bit, and boy did the clutch burn a bit when I tried to reverse the little sucker. I had an audience too, which is always fun when you're trying to do something completely foreign...

But, back to the koalas!! We parked and took a hike for a bit of the afternoon up to the forts that were used in WWII as a lookout/protection from the Japanese advances. Not only was it a great little history hike, but on the way up, I heard some kids exclaiming, "A koala! Hey, koala, aren't you cute? Are you just sleeping??" Naturally, I headed off in that direction and not only do I get to see a koala just chilling out in his eucalyptus tree just to the right of the path, but I end up making friends with some absolutely adorable little Asian tykes from the area. They all had their little backpacks and hats-- they were the ones who convinced me that we should go see the Billabong Sanctuary the very next day. Who woulda thunk that kids would be the best salespeople?

That koala was pretty much sleeping... and sleeping... and sleeping. We saw another scamper across the path to scale a tree to get out of sight, but he went up a dead tree and eventually he had to accept the fact that he made a mistake, slowly descend and head up to rest after such exertion in the neighboring tree.

Day 10: We stuck around Townsville for the morning. The rave reviews about the Billabong Sanctuary, led us to head south a bit before heading back north. It's a sanctuary for Australian animals-- similar to a zoo, but the purpose is primarily to protect the animals, raise their young (especially the koalas) and educate people on the importance of maintaining the animals' habitats and lifestyles. It was pretty amazing to get to talk to the guides about the animals and find out just how impressive Australian animals really are. Again, check out our pictures, because we also got to hold almost all of the creatures!! Myself, I held a crocodile, a red-tailed black cockatoo, a lizard, a koala, Willamena the wombat... I had a python draped around my neck as an example of how to hold one, and we fed the kangaroos from our hands! We watched the large crocs eat lunch and saw Psycho the crocodile exert 1 ton of pressure by snapping his jaws at the guide. We learned that 9 of the 10 most deadly snakes live in Australia, and got to peek in on the 3 worst ones. It was another phenomenal experience, and of course the weather is getting warmer and warmer as we work our way up the east coast!!

We took the afternoon to drive to Millaa Millaa in the Atherton Tablelands, just west of Cairns. We stopped in the deadbeat town of Tully where we stopped to arrange a dive course that will run from July 5-9. It's pretty pricey, but comes highly recommended, actually by a couple we met on the way home from Magnetic Island!

More on the Atherton Tablelands in the next entry! Cheers!