Thierings on Tour

It was a very early start to the day in anticipation of feeding the dolphins at Tin Can Bay. We grabbed a quick bite before getting to Barnacles Dolphin Feeding for 7am. The lovely volunteers checked everyone in and shared lots of information about the Australian Humpback Dolphins while we patiently waited for more of the pod to arrive. 
Some of the most interesting facts for me were:
– they live up to 45 years old in the wild 
– they love to collect & bring treasures on their noses as gifts for the volunteers 
– gestation for females is 11 months but if the mother senses that conditions are too dangerous, she can delay birth by 1-2 months

Then it was time to get in the water to feed the dolphins! As this is strictly overseen and guided by the department of the environment, each adult dolphin has a quota of 3kg of fish (a small proportion of their diet) and that’s why they have to strictly monitor the number of visitors and how many fish each visitor is allowed to feed the dolphins. First we got to feed Harmony and the girls were excited but a bit apprehensive with the first fish. By the second they were loving it, but it was time to get out. Jazzy and Izzy managed to charm their way into getting into the water again and this time we got to feed Ella, a 43 year old mother and grandmother of the pod. The girls were pros at feeding the dolphins by this stage! It’s so tempting to just pat them, but that is strictly prohibited so we kept the urges at bay…

Then we went back to camp to have some proper breakfast and head out to rainbow beach. We decided that we would leave Fraser Island for another time due to limited time and also awful predicted weather the next day (you really need to stay overnight to make the most of sightseeing).

So off we went, with our first stop being the Sand Blow. I didn’t really know what to expect, but what we found and saw was breathtaking! After a short walk through the rainforest we reached a platform overlooking an enormous sand dune or what looked like a section of a desert. It looked like it went all the way from a cliff edge and directly through the rainforest on the other side. So beautiful!

We explored for a bit and then headed back into town for lunch. I had a couple of meetings so Chris took the girls to the playground and to explore. 

In the afternoon we decided to drive out to the Double Island Lighthouse, but one of the 4WD tracks was closed so we had to go the long way. Our first 4WD adventure on this trip! 

We went through sand, gravel and finally reached the beach. However once we got to the end of the beach one of the roads up was closed and so the alternative would have been to hike for 1-2 hours, which we didn’t know. It was getting late, we didn’t have enough supplies and the weather was turning bad again…

So instead we had a good look around, then headed back into Rainbow beach for a quick drink before we drove back to the campsite. The heavens decided to open yet again and luckily there were big camp kitchens for us to spread out a bit.

What a huge adventure day!

Kms travelled -122