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.