Hamilton Island

On Tuesday we went on a sailboat snorkel trip called "On the Edge". It was very rough on the way out and the visibility was not very good, but we did get to go to Whitehaven beach. Kate enjoyed riding upfront on the trampoline. She was, however, very disappointed she wasn't allowed to jump, because the captain said "you can fly up ten feet in the air if you land at the right time, and that's great fun until you land on the very hard and unforgiving deck." She and dad got drenched.

There is a great ice cream parlor on the island, which is incidentally called "The Ice Cream Parlor." Kate was eating her chocolate and hot-fudge-carmel (hot carmel, beats me why they don't just call it that) when several rainbow lorikeets flew down to help her eat. They were on her shoulders and climbed across her shirt in attempt to get the ice cream. They attacked dad as well. Soon, two sulfer crested cockatoos joined in.

Yesterday Kate and I rode the kids quads on a course and kicked up a lot of mud. Our legs were covered in mud and we had spots all over. Kate ran into the bushes three times and had to be pulled out by the attendant, which is ironic because she has been teasing me about crashing a go-cart into a tree because my dog ran in front of me, so I swerved. Who's laughing now?

The beach is very interesting. I don't want to say the low tide is dramatically shallow, but let's just say to get a foot of water it's a fifteen minute walk from the beach. You can actually walk out to some islands. Kate went out during low tide this morning and came back with no less than 102 hermit crabs. I found a huge one yesterday that had very sharp claws. We also took a sailboat out this morning, and mom was extremely disappointed there was not enough wind to bring it up on one hull. Mom and Hobie-Cats are, let's just say, interesting.

This morning we went on a tour at the wildlife center on the island and meet a wombat named Hippo. We also met some dingoes, Dakota and Dozer, and a few koalas named Elvis, Willow, Oprah and Phoebe. We also saw the 5 month old baby koala who is really cute.