Mary Cairncross & Montville

May 5, 2010

We liked Mary Cairncross Rainforest so much we knew we had to go back during the day. When we were in the visitors center the workers were telling us about the wildlife we might see. They were telling us about these giant worms and told us we would be lucky if we saw any. As we left the office Ryan said, "I've got to find one of those worms!" And what do you know, as we started down the trail what did we almost run over?

A worm!
This is a small one. A picture in the visitor's center showed an earthworm thick enough to fit fully in the palm of your hand. Try fishing with that bad boy.



The natives of Australia found me VERY desirable!

The first night we got to Australia we went to the beach by my parents house. I was enjoying digging my toes in the sand until I looked down and saw that my feet we COVERED in sand mites. I got over fifty bites!!! Me legs and feet got very swollen!They itched SO bad they kept me up many nights. None of the itch creams is proven safe for pregnant women so I used some tee tree oil which sometimes helped a little. So what is that bleeding from? Well as we were leaving the visitors center I thought I felt something on my leg. I lifted up my pant leg and there it was hanging on my leg.....

A LEACH!!!

Yes, a leach sucking away on my blood! It took a while to remove it. The workers were about to salt it. But lucky for that little leach Ryan was able to pull him off and he was put back into the wild to live another day and attack someone else.
(Just for the record today is June 17th and I still have red spots from the bites......It's been over six weeks since I was bitten!)

Of course the Rainforest had a park next to the parking lot! Man Australia is great!!!
Ezra really liked this spinning toy.

We loved driving around because it was so beautiful! The drive from the rainforest to Monteville was exceptionally beautiful. We kept saying "WOW, this is amazing!" I've honestly never seen such beauty in my life. As we were driving enjoying the amazing views we saw a sign for a lookout. We had to stop and see what could be more amazing than what we were already seeing.

As we were enjoying the view all of a sudden a rainbow appeared in the sky.
Magic!

The rainbow
So we got to the cute little town of Monteville at about 3:55PM. We were hungry so we went to a little cafe. As we were looking at the menu the waitress informed us they were closed. Not only were they closed the WHOLE town was closed!

Many places close at about 4:00PM in Australia. If you ask people why things close so early they say, "Why would you want to work late? What about family time?" Yes, families get home from school and work and spend time together. Wonderful!

I had to get a picture of this bat that was outside one of the shops.

We left Monteville in search of food. I suggested to Ryan we stop at Big Dad's Pies, a place he had been wanting to try. We stopped at Big Dad's.......closed.....you know...... family time.

Thankfully we found another one that was open.

So what is Big Dad's Pies? Apple, peach, pumpkin? No, it's meat pies. Meat pies are kind of like the American pot pie, but different. They don't have the gravy and they are full of filling, meat, vegtables, cheese. Delicious!!! You can eat them with tomato sauce, but we liked them just the way they came. Meat pies are really big in Australia. When you go to a ball game instead of hot dogs and hamburgers there are meat pies and fish & chips.