Finding Nemo

Todays plan was to head into Townsville and find Reef HQ the worlds largest reef aquarium.
Good old satnav guided us there no problem although was not too sure about the parking attendant..

The outside of the building was not that impressive so we did start to wonder about the claims about its size..

...but as we later saw from above it was huge...

But I get ahead of myself. Once we had paid you all got a stamp to allow you to come back at any stage during the day

Once in you were met with the usual selection of large aquarium with a mix of less mobile animals, Cameron was particularly taken with this one:

We then walked through a glass tunnel between the main reef tank full of a huge variety of fish

and the predator tank.
We waited for a couple of minutes in the theatre that is beside the tank as they were giving a presentation.
Before that though the windows had to be cleaned

with some different clientele inspecting your work to see it was done correctly

 The tank had three species of shark in it:
Black-tipped Reef Shark

Two Leopard Sharks (a mum and daughter)

And "cuddles" - now cuddles is a night feeding shark but we were all so fascinated by the fact that it likes human contact that none of us can remember what it was!

After the talk we went to the Discovery Zone via this amazing interactive floor

there was a projected image of the reef and as you walked you created ripples and the fish that were near you swam off very quickly and only returned when you were still - the children were hooked!

At the start of the Discovery Zone the children all got eaten..

...and all went off to find Nemo...

We all had a try of the old style diving helmet...

... and boy did it smell coppery - very unpleasant.
Tish was fascinated by the Sea Horses (and bought some very cute seahorse ear rings)

The final part of the tour was a visit to the Turtle Hospital where any injured / sick turtle in Queensland gets treated and released when well - if they can't be released then they are put down. One fascinating fact we all learnt is that of the seven global species Australia has six - Loggerhead, Green, Hawksbill, Leatherback, Olive Ridley and Flatbacked, with only Kemps Ridly missing. Unfortunately you were not allowed to use you flash in the Hospital so none of the pictures came out.

After the tour we found a nice restaurant and had a great Chinese dinner, the staff and food was absolutely superb!
For a change of pace we then went for a brief visit to Townsville Common. This area of wetlands, forest and hills was just north of the city and was a great place to explore.
The views were spectacular

and the occupants very cute...

Tomorrow we are going north to Ingham to explore a bit!