Rainbow Beach - Saturday

Saturday, July 12, 2014

I am going to have a weekend away again.  This time at Rainbow Beach.  Kevin's partner has booked a holiday house for the weekend and I have been invited.  :-)  

On Friday night Kevin arrives after work at Bribie Island.  I've made nasi goreng, so we enjoy dinner together before we set off to Rainbow Beach.  When we finally do it's dark and so we drive all the way in the dark, a trip of three hours.  We arrive at 9:30 pm and I am not as tired of driving as I thought I would be, so we enjoy a chat and a cuppa before we go to bed.

Saturday it's Adele's birthday and she wants to go and feed the dolphins.  The tickets for the ferry and the dolphin feeding have already been arranged, so all we need to do is waiting for the shuttle bus to pick us up and drive us to the ferry.

The ferry brings us to the other side of the inlet to Tin Can Bay marina where the dolphins generally come to shore for a feed.

The (controlled) feeding will start at 8 am.  Before that time we're allowed to watch.

We've taken off our shoes and rolled up the pant legs and are standing on the freezing sand, not really wanting to go into the even more freezing water, but after a while it doesn't feel so cold any more.

The temperatures had already plummeted below zero in some places inland, so the start of winter is really cold this year.

Soon it is 8 am and we are all handed a small bucket with a fish in it after we have rinsed our hands in an anti-bacterial solution so as not to bring any bacteria to the healthy dolphins.

One after the other we are allowed to enter the water and feed our fish to one of the two dolphins that have arrived for a feed.  It is all very commercial, but it's a sign of the times and there is nothing that we can do about it.  Just being happy that we get to feed them at all...

When the dolphins have been fed by the volunteers they know it's time to go.  Not much later the pelicans turn up and want a bit of the spoils too.

When the pelicans have left too it's time for us to go back on the ferry where we warm up with a cuppa.

Back home we have breakfast, which for the occasion consists of poffertjes (a kind of Dutch pancakes).

Adele had planned pancakes for breakfast, but we made it poffertjes instead and she didn't have to cook breakfast on her birthday.

After that it was time for the birthday gifts and cards and she received plenty of beautiful gifts.

In the afternoon the weather was still beautiful and warm enough for the beach, so we went for a short beach walk and Mikayla and Angus spent the best part of the afternoon playing in the waves.

At the end of the afternoon a BBQ awaits us (thanks to Kevin) and we have a delicious dinner with Tiger prawns.

Next update: Rainbow Beach - Sunday