Thursday, February 08, 2007

sea world

hi everyone, today we went to sea world. it was a really good day out.

we started by having a look at the indoor aquarium, which was full of all sorts of fish, many that we have already seen on our travels up to cairns and the whitsundays.

after that we had a look at a couple of dugong's. sea world has made a large exhibit for the dugong's and one in particular who they rescued from the wild. it had been found without it's mum at a very young age, sea world looked after it for a while but decided to release it back into the wild. however it was then discovered stranded and was brought back to live at sea world.

for those who don't know, a dugong is from the same family as manatees, and are known commonly as sea cows because of the way they "graze" on the sea's vegetation. this particular dugong is called pig.

after spending lots of time reading up on dugongs we stumbled across some HUGE australian pelican's. we were shocked at the size of them and didn't want to get too close.

there was a few looking a bit worse for wear, one with half a wing missing that probably wouldn't survive in the wild as it can no longer fly.


luckily we caught up with a walrus who was taking some time out on a bench nearby. despite being a man of very few words, he agreed to have a photo taken with greg. meanwhile, amy commandeered a pirate ship.

in the waters near the pirate ship we spotted a few dolphins.


then we went to watch a show called 'quest for the golden seal'. the seals were really good and made us laugh. it's amazing how intelligent they are and it really looked like they were enjoying themselves.
our favourite part of sea world was polar bear shores. they have created a near arctic summer evironment for the bears with a big pool that has underwater viewing. we thought the bear was gorgeous.

we then made our way to shark bay. there was a number of rock pool areas surrounding it where we got to touch some starfish and sea cucumbers. we had felt a sea cucumber before, when we went scuba diving on the great barrier reef and it was good to get another look at such a strange creature.

we got to see the sharks from an underwater viewing area.


there was loads of other fish to see, including this big fella... a queensland groper. grandad (ces) you'd have a job reeling this one in!


not only does sea world have all of these amazing animals, it also has a few rides. so we thought we'd give a few a go.


they have a big wheel called the sea world eye so we gave that a try. we got to see some good views of the park, surfers paradise and the surrounding areas.

we also had a go on the log flume and the bermuda triangle ride which needs a whole blog of it's own to describe... dave it was like one of my dreams it was that crazy. but basically it involved us being sent to investigate a volcano that had appeared in the bermuda triangle. inside the volcano we found aliens and robots and all the missing planes, boats, missiles and people that have gone missing there since time began. how odd.

after our mission we went to get some well earned lunch, then headed to the water park for a swim and to try out some of the slides.

there was also a massive slide where we both sat in a giant rubber ring, but we had no one to take a photo of us on that.

we got to see some more dolphins, in a show at dolphin cove. they were amazing to watch and seemed to love the attention. it was interesting to see how the trainers communicated with them and the dolphins were very sociable when we walked round the cove after the show. they were eager to show off when we got close by.

by this time it was almost time to leave. but we just couldn't resist going to see the polar bear a second time. however this time there were two young male bears. we saw them play fighting, which was incredible to see. greg had never seen a polar bear before today. all he kept saying was "wow".

we felt very lucky to be only inches away from one of them while we were down in the underwater viewing area, he was huge!


if you've read this far then well done. it was so long because we had a really fun day and wanted to show you as much of it as we could.

can't wait to see you all, only 6 weeks now!

no doubt we'll post again over the weekend.

take care x x x

13 comments:

David Nield said...

all the pics look great! I am very jealous sat here having to work all day. there was some snow this morning but not much and now a lot of it has melted.

Anonymous said...

Amy you really are keira Knightley now you've comandeered a pirate ship!
It all looks amazing! I'm Jealous too!!!
Yes, we were supposed to get 4 inches of snow but we hardly got any! you will get a shock when you get home, its so so cold here!! Minus 6 at night!

Anonymous said...

test

Anonymous said...

Well well well - you have never ever seen a polar bear before Greg, I guess seeing your grizly old bear of a mum does not count then - haa haa. Only kidding, my attempt at a joke.

You will love it when you come back anyway my love, despite the cold there be a lovely warm welcome for you, see, I can be nice when I want to be.

PS. how can you marry amy, when you promised you would marry holly. how odd. xxx

Anonymous said...

That was me who did test, it wouldn't let me put my message on.

Anonymous said...

yes greg you have seen a polar bear before! but the place looks real good , as i said this morn silly soft stuff but all gone by lunch ! never mind, no pics ! love mum xxxxxxxxx

Anonymous said...

mum, where have i seen a polar bear before other than tv?

deborah, which holly do you mean?....not my cousin's daughter who i am about 18 years older than! weird.

Anonymous said...

Do you mean Commanded - as in "was in charge of" - or, as you wrote, "commandeered" - as in "nicked". If the latter, I'm impressed, where did you hide it? Up your jumper?

amy and greg said...

fao jackson davies - see number three.

commandeer

1.To force into military service.
2.To seize for military use; confiscate.
3.To take arbitrarily or by force

to take, doesn't mean you have to store it up your jumper. you could commandeer anything.

Anonymous said...

Holly, my precious beautiful grandaughter, so yes, almost as weird as errr a weird thing. Was only joking. My jokes are good aren't they? Good or sick, one or the other. And you are not 18 years older you are 15 years older. She is 3 now. Oh.. so maybe you are 18 years older, you right again. Hey,a guy rang up for you at work today. Told him you were not available, he send to tell you a case had settled at 40% claimed rate. So I have done. So, where did you see this other polar bear, do you know yet, bet it was at a zoo.

Anonymous said...

Greg, why is it taking me ten or more attempts to send a blog message it keeps saying something about illegal charactors or something.

Would you help me please? xx

Anonymous said...

who was the last comment by?
blogger has been playing up a bit recently, for example i think people are unable to enlarge the photos on the main page. but i don't know why it's taking so many attempts to post a message. this one has gone on straight forward enough.

Anonymous said...

debs you need to tick the box that says other and then type your name in the box that says name/username other wise how do we know its you except ! of course we do xxxxxxxxxxxx