24th October - Feeding flipper and fossicking

Feeling better from leaving Hervey bay, the van took us all the way down the coast to Maryborough. Now this famously crappy town has three things going for it...

1) It is home to Australia's largest banyan tree, a strange set up that grows roots from it's branches as well as it's normal roots, thus making a huge plethora of trees that is actually just the one. It is so big I lost Sarah in it. This was actually the best and coolest thing about Maryborough.

2) It has a Mary Poppins statue as the author/creator of the movie/book was born in Maryborough.

3) It is home to the Mary club, where Marys all over the world come together to talk about past, present and future Marys and their roles in society. You can even sign a book. We thought about both lying to get in the club but you need ID and we couldn't find a printer to make some fake ones.

After the grand tour of Mary, we hightailed it to Rainbow beach. Not a great deal was there again, but we did see another beautiful beach with some kid burning up and down on a mini moto wobbling all over the shop. We took bets on him falling off, but he didn't the little scamp.

The overnight stay was in Tin Can bay. Got some BBQ action at the caravan park and had to listen to some fisherman guy, who stays there long term, singing to Rod Stewart for over an hour. If I ever hear the raw Australian version of 'forever young' again I'll kill myself and anyone in the near vicinity as a charitable act.

The best thing we have found in Oz without the lonely planet or any help really was at Tin Can bay and one of the recommended things to do. One day back in whenever some fisher people found Scarry, an injured rare indo-pacific humpback dolphin, on it's river shores. They fed and nursed it back to health, the bugger kept coming back every day for more fish. Time goes on and Scarry had a son, Mystique who now takes over the role of eating free fish every day, he also has a girlfriend called Patch and they turn up nearly every day. So as tourists do, we went down and watched this and we got to feed Mystique. A cool experience, feeding a wild dolphin.

Then, we went fossicking for gold in Gympie. Not such a pleasant experience. We had to buy a fossicking licence, cool but useless, and pay for some shovels. We thought there would be loads of people trying it out but no, just us losers playing in dirt down by the river. We felt like twits so we left after 15 minutes and went to McDonalds for an icecream, it was hard work.

So there we have it, good and the bad again. Tomorrow we are to try surf school and more wine, hopefully both good.

Laters

Pricey