Pat and Don's Big Adventure

Hi everyone! Well since we last left you we have seen quite a bit more of this beautiful country. Finally-lots of real live wildlife!!!The Steve Irwin Australia Zoo was amazing. Eveything from huge tortoises, lizards, wombats snakes and everything in between. We were able to hand feed the many mnay kangaroos and a few even had their little joeys in their pockets. The koalas looked so cute & cuddly but we weren't able to cuddle them as many of them are there because its a safe place for them to recover or live out the rest of their lives in peace. All of the animals are soo..well taken care of and have huge amounts of room to walk jump or fly around in. There are beautiful huge birds freely flying all over, even the elephants had huge space. It was great to see the crocodiles but got just close enough.We also saw tigers swimming??? I didn't that but they were having a great time. So it was a full day at that zoo-so glad we came. Back to Brisbane where we stayed with our friend Bev-the Hostess with the mostest! She drove us around the city then took us to dinner at her friends house  where we had a fabulous Thai dinner-yum, yum... The animals were restless that night back at Bev's but that's why we have earplugs-they work like a charm. Next day the temps were going to reach 36 degrees and as you know that's my melting temperature so we took the City Cat (catamaran) up and down the river and saw another beautiful side of Brisbane from the water-all this for $4.50 and we could get off and on as often as we wanted so stoppped and had a great lunch right at the river's edge-how perfect. Next day we were off to Surfer's Paradise(this is a different kind of zoo for people) Actually we really liked it there so we stayed a few days. Everything is in a few blocks radius and we had  such a nice  place to stay so we weren't in any hurry to leave. The people watching is great, this is definitely a people zoo!Don's favorite part were the young meter maids in their tiny gold bikinis and cowboy hats-he had a tough time trying to get one of those tickets from them though so we settled on taking pictures. Alas it was time to move on so off to Lennox, Ballina and finally Byron Bay. Chelsea has told us so much about this place so we had to see it. It's like a town out of the 70's-lots of backpackers and people living out of their vans and just so easy going and laid back. It was here that we met up with our former exchange student from 1997. She is doing great work with the dolphins and marine conservation down here and when she has time she's an artist. WE even saw a 40 ft. yacht that she painted complete with dophins and waves-just beautiful-what a talent!!!Spent a great day with her family up on their 80 acres visiting with family and then enjoying a 4x4 ride out to the paddocks where we found one lonely Koala and lots of cows. Another perfect day!Back into Byron and headed out to a see a musician that Chels has raved about-Harry Healy. Wow-what a great one-man band. He had the place packed to the rafters. The place was just jumping especially when he played (our music) from the 70's, 80's etc.Liz joined us there so we were able to enjoy one last visit with here. Time to say good-bye, hope it won't be long before we see her again. Tried to meet up with Kathy & Teresa's cousin Gary as he owns a night club here but he wasn't around- too bad it would have been nice to meet him.So our time in Byron is done, we are heading further south towards Sydney-trying to stay away from the effects of Cyclone Hamish. Only 10 days left in this beautiful country but I know we'll be back some day-there is just soo...much to see and do. I'll update before we leave for Fiji. lots of love to all and we look forward to hearing from you soon. Again don't feel you have to comment at this site as I am checking my regular e-mail as well. Would love to hear from you. Sorry I haven't sent too much in the way of postcards-I've bought them just haven't written on them. They'll be part of the movie I'll make when we get home. "On the road again"...cheers Pat & Don