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Surfers Paradise
From our 26th story window in the Marriott, we could see several weird
birds congregating on top of somebody's garage. We'd seen these birds
wherever there was water. We decided to check them out.
We walked down the side streets to the house and easily spotted all of
the strange birds on the garage. As we readied our cameras, a woman
came out. "So you're here to see the ibis, huh?" She threw out some
bread in the lawn and the ibis flew down for a meal. Now we saw them
closer and knew their name.
The next day we hit the road to visit Tropical Fruit World, the largest
collection of fruit trees in the world. Tropical Fruit World was every
bit a tourist trap as the name hints. The fruit tasting was really neat,
the tractor ride through the orchards was somewhat monotonous since most
of the trees looked the same. When the tractor ride ended at the bottom
of the hill you could see all of the bonus crud they had to install to
make people come and pay money to visit - kiddie train ride, petting zoo,
boat ride, playground. Argh, it was terrible. If you're gonna go, go
for the fruit and don't get your hopes up about anything else.
Thank goodness Tropical Fruit World didn't consume the entire day. For
the latter part of the afternoon we visited David Fleay's Wildlife Park.
It was pretty well done as far as zoos go. I still hate seeing wild
animals caged up, but it was a good way to get introduced to the species
of Queensland.
The birds, however, were not incarcerated like the other animals. They
were free to come and go as they chose. The environment in the park was
such that many different species of birds enjoyed visiting the park and
even making it their home. There were a number of different ducks
enjoying the ponds and the other ducks.
There were more ibis than we'd seen concentrated in any other place, and a
couple of unusual birds such as a female black-necked stork (distinguishable
from the male because she has a yellow eye) and the nankeen night heron,
a nocturnal bird who appeared just before the sun was setting. We even
saw a pelican there!
David Fleay's Wildlife Park was the only place we saw koalas. If you
surfed in looking for koala pictures, here they are. But keep in mind
that they were photographed in captivity, the only Australian animals on
this site that require that disclaimer. If we got to the park early
enough, a sign said we could have had our picture taken while holding
one. I still can't decide if that was a good idea or not.
That night we had dinner at the hotel's Benihana Japanese restaurant.
We packed up for the next leg of our journey which began early the next
morning with a flight to Hervey Bay…
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