Holiday - 2006/10/27

• Today started with a zoo tour before breakfast. We visited the giraffe’s (Gerald), black rhino (Gwonza), Cheetahs, and the Simian Gibbons from Sumatra. We were all given the chance to feed Gerald who is a very friendly giraffe with a very long tongue. He loved the carrots for breakfast. Afterwards, Stephen said feeding Gerald was his favorite part of our zoo trip. On the way to feed Gwonza the Black Rhino we paused to look into a paddock where some of the white rhino’s were lounging including a 2 week old baby who is identical to his mother, except for the absence of a horn (less painful birth without the horn). We also visited two young male cheetahs who were quite frisky and running around their enclosure. They are an awesome sight when they wind up to a decent pace. Interestingly, while the cheetahs can only go at their top speed for 400m or so, the wild African dogs we saw the previous day can sustain a speed of 60-70km per hour for 7 to 8 kilometers. Our last stop before a hearty breakfast was the Simian Gibbons who will put on a show a few times a day to let everyone know where the boundaries of their territory lays. We recorded this on the video camera – the sounds the male a female pair made were extraordinary and the interaction between the two was great to watch. They have a young baby gibbon who also danced around during the performance. While it was great to watch it was also sobering to be told that if someone were to actually encroach on the gibbons territory they would definitely be killed. The Simian Gibbons are fiercely territorial and aggressive in their defense of their territory.



• After breakfast we set off on our long drive to Halidays Point. We had a few stops a long the way, but only short stops. Our longest stop was at Raymond Terrace where we picked up a few things at the grocery store for a bbq that night. We took approximately 6.5 hours to cover the distance from Dubbo to Hallidays Point.
• We arrived just on 5pm and Sean, Karen, and Josh arrived 5 minutes later. Angela, Michael, Matthew, and Joel were already there having arrived around 2pm. Incedibly Stephen had stayed awake the entire drive, mainly watching DVD’s, but he fell asleep about 5 minutes before we arrived! We had a nice catch-up – everyone was very happy to see each other and we had a bbq for dinner and ate together on the deck of Sean & Karen’s cabin.
• The big news is that Karen and Sean are expecting a baby next year. Everyone was overjoyed at the news – we know how excited they are to be expecting a little brother or sister for Josh, including Josh himself.
• Josh & Sean introduced us to Josh’s cricket card game called Wickets, and we spent a fun couple of hours playing the game while tweaking the rules.
• Drove 515km.
• Google Map