GEE-CKOS

 Every evening whilst we are clearing up dinner we can all just here the musical CHIRP CHIRP of the house Geckos. Chirp is the only way I can really describe it. I would try and record it and put it on here but it isnt really something someone can catch without warning.  It is a super loud noise that can be herd clearly in the house. When I first heard it I thought it was a loud bird. It wasn't until one night when Davey said "can you hear the geckos Chirping outside?" that the mysterious noise was revealed to me.  

So at some point, almost every night, one or all of us goes outside to look at the geckos. It is almost inevitable because Rain is obsessed with them. She is getting to the point where she repeats the words gee-ckos, gee-ckos until someone will accompany her to the back porch. It does come in handy at times though. Rain is a mamas girl as well so if Summ ever wants to catch a break she reminds Rain of the geckos and Rain will come running saying GEE-CKOS!

This little guy was an odd ball. I found him hanging out during the day and then when I went to say hello he just sat there and didnt scurry at all. No normal gecko looks at you and doesnt scurry. so I tapped his tail to get him to move and he moved but then he would stop and I have never met a gecko who hangs around when you touch him. Obviously I was intrigued so I went to pick him up and.  .  .   . . well, he bit me. 

After that I was super fond of him and his spunk so I hung out with him for a while. He must ahve been pretty proud of himself because he would just strut around when he got on the ground. He was so  strange. Davey Dubbed him the pet gecko. 

I love it! It is so fun to have Geckos living on the house at night. Better than the roaches anyways. I haven't seen a roach in a while but I am a nervous wreck whenever the lights are off. Geckos seem like much safer cleaner neighbors.

A Crabby Beach Day

Last week we went to Alva Beach, which is the beach about 15 minutes away from my sisters house. It was a pretty warm day and it wasn't even windy so I was hoping maybe I could get some good beach swimming in. when we got there we saw zillions of these little holes.

They were everywhere overlapping one another. for those who don't know, these delicate little holes come from crabs.

You maybe thinking "that is a tiny hole, tiny hole must = tiny crab. Not necessarily.  But it doesn't matter anyways because there wasn't a crab in site. Not one. Apperently they can feel or hear you coming because we couldn't see a single one anywhere. This was surprising because there were sooooo many holes!!
It wasnt until Rain and I were exploring through an estuary type thing that we found them. Oh did we find them! Crabs everywhere!

 All those pale dots on the sand. . . .crabs.

I did a little research and found that this little crab is called Mictyris longicarpus. More commonly known as the Soldier Crab. Makes sense to me since they travel in platoons!

Their bodies are about the size of a cherry but with the legs it feels a lot more like hundreds of blue golfballs running around! As it turns out the little sand balls are not from digging holes. Essentially they are a sandy version of a spit ball. They come out and chew up the sand eating the dead organic goodies in the sand and then they spit out these little balls of sand. COOL RIGHT! They are like beach janitors! 

These particular crabs only come out for feeding at low tide and sometimes not at all. blah blah, Science, cool stuff, blah, only for a couple hours, more science vocab. Let me explain, no there is too much, let me sum up. We were really lucky to get to see them come out for dinner. 

As cool as it was I have a secret fear of all things creepy and crawly and that includes our dear friend Mictyri here. Not that I couldn't go watch them or film one when it was alone but when they are in the vast groups, like this, it gives me the heebie jeebies and I am afraid I might step on one or it will crawl on me or something. You guys should have heard the sound of them all running over the sand. It was a bit like a rain stick. Really neat stuff!! 

Another successful trip to the beach.

They are Exotic for a reason

 Never found my passion for veggies I have always been a fruit loving kind of girl. Summer picked up some exotic fruits for us to try and we cracked into them on one night after dinner.

The large yellow one is a Papaya and the two smaller pink/red ones are Passion fruits.

Really though it is what is on the inside that counts.

My Beautiful sister working her fruit chopping talents.

  

Now as you can see the inside of the papaya is Orange and much the same texture of a cantaloupe. The part of the passion fruit that you eat looks and feels a lot like frog eggs. That is all fine and dandy but, whats that you say?  Never judge a book by its cover or, ahem, texture. It is the flavor that really matters! (not really a motto you should necessarily live by.)

 The moment of truth! Please pardon the large greasy forehead, it is rather humid, or perhaps I was breaking a sweat about eating frog eggs. I really don't remember.

The Verdict? Well the frog eggs are actually pretty good. They are pretty tangy full of flavor. We had them over some vanilla ice cream later so the combination was quite lovely. Wish I could say as much about the papaya. It mostly tastes like vomit. Not the good kind either (if there is a good kind) It tastes like when someone else vomits and you accidentally get a whiff of the potent stomach acid that comes floating from your average amusement park garbage can.

Two more checks off the list of things I have tasted. Three if you want to count the papaya as two different things. Now we know why these fruits stay exotic unlike the delicious banana and Pineapple .

A Mission Beach Party!

This last weekend the Olsens took me to a beautiful beach called Mission Beach. It is about a 4 hour drive north and it is absolutely gorgeous! While we were there we saw all kinds of goodies! Our camp site was right on the beach and the other side is blocked by rain-forest. We left on Saturday morning car packed and kiddos rearing to go.

This has trouble written all over it.

Almost the whole time we were there it was cloudy, rainy, and windy but that didn't phase us much. It wasn't cold, just wet and we were all having a good time.

 On Sunday morning just after breakfast we had a most welcome visitor. Cassowary! Cassowaries are large flightless birds like emus but they are less known for some reason. They have the coolest colors on their heads, blue, and red. The tall plate on their head practically forces you to believe that dinosaurs  once roamed the earth. And their Large size and penetrating eyeballs are quite frightning when in close proximity, coming right for you.

Protecting these birds is somewhat a big deal and they have signs all around cassowary habitats. The art work is wonderful and the warnings are clear. haha these are a few favorites.

Good thing the Before and After are specified. You might get the impression there are zombie Cassowaries for the next few miles.

and I like the CHILL OUT ,NOT FLAT OUT written at the top.

 Because if you are going the speed limit then you automatically miss the over sized bird in front of you.

SLOW DOWN PEOPLE!! Speeding Kills Cassowaries! Really though I approve of all the fun signs and cassowary awareness. They are really neat and endangered so all you lot spread the bird word, be a beak Freak, save the scary Wary, tether together and save a feather. etc. . .etc

Everything was so wet and the beach made you sandy so wearing shoes was less that pointless.

Later we went on some beautiful hikes in the rain-forest. This is one of my favorite things ever!! 

 Don't worry that we found some spiders that could eat me and haunt my nightmares to this day.

Ah! it was just to beautiful! I love it so much! it was raining on and off during the first hike and it was perfect listening to the drops on the canopy!

I couldn't ask for much more! We drove to a beach called Bingil Bay later where we all had a good time playing in the sand and looking through the rocks.

Miss you Mom! 

We spent time hanging out at the campsite too :)

Prying mantis

haha I love this picture

Summer and I are doing 30 day ab challenge. It is just a nightly ab work out that gets increasingly difficult every night this is us trying to get through the sit ups inside the tent.

Every night Sky wanted to tell scary stories so I told one and she kept asking for more. By the end of the weekend I had quite depleted my brains store of Grim brothers, Andersons, and even Tales of Beetle the bard.  I am going to need to read up before the next camp out.

On Monday morning we packed up our stuff in the rain and just before we were going to buckle up and head out Summ came running to the Car like a mad woman Saying DAVEY!!! The cassowary is back!!! haha so we all got our cameras out and took some footage. What we saw was the height of cool! My camera had died but Summer caught it on film.

 

ROO and WARY both in the wild!!!  It was a first rate way to end the trip.

Billabong, AKA : Best Day Ever

Saturday the Ollies took me to the Billabong Sanctuary about 45 minutes away from their home. None of them had been there before so it was a new experience for all of us!

If I could have a small peek at my heaven I imagine it would have a large portion dedicated to this kind of thing. There were Kangaroos everywhere you turned and they were all calm, friendly and willing to run you over for some seed! We Got to interact with all kinds of wild life, Wombats, Cockatoos, Crocs and Snakes to name a few. I threw together this video and between the pictures Summer and I took, I think you can all get a good feel of how it was for us!

It was so much fun! I actually sent this place an email before I came here asking if I could volunteer here, unfortunately they never got back to me. We talked to them while there and apparently they have a new system so they don't have my email. They gave me a new address to talk to though and I really hope they let me come volunteer! It would be a neat experience!