Back to the Bears

We couldn't help but go back to the Polar Bears. Who wouldn't? They weren't as active as earlier in the day, but they were still up to mischeif as you can see below with the milk crates.

Nap time. It's a hard life being a bear who lives in an air conditioned den with a huge swimming pool.

Check out the paws on these beautiful animals!

Rides

After the dolphin show we found some lunch (and got gouged for it) then headed to the rides.

The Cork Screw was always a good ride but I forgot how short it was.
Seaworld has a new one called Jet Rescue which is a ground level roller coaster that packs a surprising punch. Instead of being dragged up to the top of the roller coaster track, you are launched from where to climb on board. It's a really cool ride but they seemed to be having some reliability problems which was a shame because we only got to go on it once.

The ski show is under renovation so we didn't get to see it this time. Pity because it was always a highlight.

Dolphin Show

After the sharks we scurried of to catch the inevitable dolphin show. It never loses its appeal. As always, the dolphin show is a hit with the kids. I'll let the photos do the talking now.

Tastey Residents

The Sharks must be pretty well fed because aside from not eating the divers, they don't eat the huge table fish in the enclosure. Above are some very old pink snapper (or nobbies if you live in Queensland) and below are Spangled Emporer (or Norwest Snapper if you're a Western Australian). There were also Yellow tailed Kingfish & a couple of varieties of trevaly to name a few.

Shark Bay From Below

The underwater viewing area allows you to come face to face with some of these formidable predators. I would not want to get near one of these on one of my scuba dives let me tell you. Most of them are bronze whalers but there are a couple of big bull sharks as well.

Meet the boss. Below is the biggest meanest inhabitant of the reef. This is the same 8ft bull shark from the previous post. Nasty lookin' yes?
There are also some not so cranky sharks in the big pond. Below is a shovel nosed shark. They're very busy bottom foragers.

Shark Bay From Above

Now for the nasty sharks. You can see the dark shadows under the water in these photos. They're the types of sharks that demand respect like bronze whalers & bull sharks. There are also some Shovel nosed sharks as well.

If you look closely to the top of frame in the photo above, you'll see a couple of scuba divers. They're "cleaning the fish tank" while being circled by some pretty big sharks with very bad attitudes. They had a shadow boat with them the whole time. The bronze whaler shadowing the divers would be pushing 5 feet long.

The bull shark in the below photo is easily 8 foot. Nasty piece of work that one let me tell you.

What I like about this enclosure is that the sharks behave naturally and swim about as they please instead of doing circles like in all the other shark pens I've seen. It's fairly typical of the way Seaworld on the Gold Coast set up they're animal environments with lots of room for the animals to swim freely.

Shark Bay Reef Section

Next Stop was Seaworld's newest attraction (although its a few years old now), Shark Bay. They were just finishing off the landscaping & scenery last time I was at Seaworld.

Pictured above is a segregated shallow reef section which is full of colourful fish & small rays that are typical of life in the reef lagoons on the coral atolls on the Great Barrier Reef.

Below is the reef enclosure for the smaller shark species like Black Tipped Reef Sharks & Leopard Sharks. The Leopard Shark is the lazy one sitting on the bottom in the second picture.

Polar Bear Shores

Once we were inside the gate we headed straight for the Polar Bears before the noisy kids messed it for us. They've done a great job with the habitat. The bears don't seem stressed at all and actually look quite content & relaxed.

They have an air conditioned den & a great big chilled pool. They even have cooling water sprays like you see in some beer gardens these days.

The bears (called Nelson & Hudson) were playing up big time when we got to their enclosure. They were wrestling in the small pond. They were play fighting like our two kittens do.
Right after the games in the pond it was time for a dip in the pool. They seem to really enjoy their swim in the cool pool.


We had to leave them after that to see some of the other attations but we would come back later.

Seaworld

Brisbane Day 2 - Seaworld

It had been a number of years since either of us had been to Seaworld on the Gold Coast so we figured it would be a nice idea to go down there & check it out for the day. Hopefully being a Thursday off season there wouldn't be too many kids running around making trouble for themselves. We weren't too far wrong as it turned out.

Brisbane Trip

Brisbane Day 1 - Transit

After a little under 12 months in the travel no fly zone thanks to our wedding (and the planning of) we are finally back on track.

A couple of weeks ago we decided we'd had enough of the wettest Perth winters since 1996 (good for the dams, bad for cabin fever) and decided to do something about it. Queensland seemed like a good idea since that weather is always nice there at this time of year & we could spend some time with my parents who live in Brisbane & haven't seen much of since leaving for Canada.
We booked the flights only 4 days out and paid the price for it literally. I only gave work 2 days notice but they didn't seem to care & the boss never knew I was gone.

We flew out late morning Perth time & landed in Brisbane early afternoon where my Dad was waiting to pick us up. Heading East is was a fairly short flight (about 4.20 hrs) thanks to the trade winds. That night was a bit of a catch up with my folks & kick back.