The End of Australia

On Tuesday in Cairns we drove to Babinda Boulders. It was another lovely rain forest walk with beautiful granite rock formations in Babinda Creek. It reminded us a lot of Johnson's Shut-Ins in Missouri, only bigger, deeper, faster, and more deadly. A lot of people drown there each year when they ignore all the guard rails and signs and go into the water just to be pulled under by the current.

 There was a wide, shallow, slow moving swimming hole upstream from the boulders. We swam with a lovely woman who was a doctor on holiday. There were also a couple of men who were snorkeling up the creek and we couldn't figure out how they were doing it with the water so cold. I think this may have been the night that we got back to town early and went to see Monument Men at the movie theater. Yes, we go half way around the world to go to the movies without kids.

 On our last day in Cairns I was really ready to put the rain forest behind me and try something new. Neil agreed to try the crocodile farm and low and behold he loved it! We stayed the ENTIRE day. I was exhausted but I couldn't drag him away!

First was a boat ride around the river to see the crocs and nests. The driver told awful jokes and tempted the crocs with chicken. After that we watched a demonstration and feeding.

 Here is Neil with his chicken head which he fed to the fresh water crocs. They're really small and pretty harmless.

 This croc was born with no tail. It's a pretty common birth defect but they don't survive in the wild. We saw this on a tour of the farm.

 We went to a croc show and a snake show where Neil took a ton of pics of both. Why, I have no idea. (Because the snake below is an inland Taipan, one of the most venomous snakes in the world and I thought Bret would get a kick out of it.)

 And again with the fuzzy marsupials. I was trying to go home and kept having to stop on the path to wait for Neil because he would find yet another animal that he needed to feed or pet.

The next day we returned our car and flew home. Interestingly, security in Australia is way more lax than in the US. The Malaysian flight disappeared the day we arrived in Australia so I was worried security might be more of a problem. But we flew to Cairns and then back to Sydney without anyone ever checking our ID. At the gate to get on our flight to LA they had a special security screening for just that flight. Every time you went to get a drink or go to the bathroom you had to show your ID again to get into the US flight gate area.
And that's it! We loved it and would love to go back but we probably won't as there are so many other awesome places we want to go to. I did figure out that two weeks away while pregnant and with little ones at home was more than I wanted but by the time we go away for two weeks again they'll all be big!