Our latest travels took us north, well past Sydney into the state of Queensland. Queensland is best known for the Great Barrier Reef and the tropical rainforests north of the Tropic of Capricorn. We didn't go that far north. The Great Barrier Reef is the one major Aussie destination that we won't see on this visit. While we'd love to make the trip, we haven't the time, or the money to make it work this time. And with Erin not yet quite comfortable enough in the water to enjoy fully all that the reef has to offer, it seemed like the most reasonable thing to leave off our "must see" list. Nancy and I are already making plans for our next visit; the Reef is definitely on the itinerary. All that said, we quickly learned that there is quite a bit to see in southern Queensland, particularly in and around Brisbane, the state capital.

(Below: Brisbane's CBD (Central Business District) from South Bank. That's the Victoria Bridge spanning the river on the left side, and that building near the left margin of the photo with the green light at the top is our hotel.)

This was as much a business trip as it was a holiday, at least for the first week and a half. We began in downtown Brisbane with a science fiction/fantasy convention (Conjure IV for those of you keeping score at home) at which David was a guest. And so while he spent his days working -- speaking on panels, reading from his books, and introducing himself to Australia's small but vibrant speculative fiction community, Nancy and the girls explored the city a bit. They spent one afternoon exploring the city's botanic gardens and another day walking around the beautiful South Bank section of the city, which includes the Queensland Museum and its kid-friendly Sciencentre, as well as the Queensland Art Gallery. South Bank, located just across the Brisbane River from the city centre, also has shops, terrific restaurants, and an extensive public swimming area that includes a saltwater swimming pool as well as a man-made lagoon complete with sandy beach. It offers wonderful views of Brisbane's beautiful skyline, particularly at night. We ate there every night that first extended weekend in Brissie, and returned later in the holiday for a second meal at a great Turkish restaurant where the waiters were, according to the female members of our contingent, quite good looking. During their time without Dad in the city, the Nancy and the girls also took the city ferry over to the University of Queensland's Saint Lucia campus, where Nancy was to do some research later in the week. But more on that in a bit.

(Above left and right: Nancy took these pictures of the girls at the Sciencentre in the Queensland Museum. She calls them "Still Life with Disembodied Head, Numbers I and II". Left, the girls, bodies restored, outside the Brisbane City Hall. This picture was also taken by Nancy.)

For those of you who are interested, David's convention was one of the best he's ever attended. The programming was interesting, well-organized and well-attended. The people -- professionals and fans alike -- were incredibly friendly, and just about everyone went out of his or her way to make "the visiting American author" feel welcome. And the hotel set up a bar that was solely for convention attendees, giving all who were there a place to talk shop and unwind when the panels were over. In every way, it was a terrific con and a great experience.

(Below: Erin fresh from a swim at Bribie Island.)

After the convention was over we moved from the city centre to one of the outlying suburbs closer to the University campus where Nancy was to conduct her research, which she'll describe shortly. We set up house in a two bedroom apartment and while Nancy worked each day, Dad and the girls got to play. We spent a couple of days at Mount Coot-Tha Reserve, a huge parkland with a botanic garden, a planetarium, viewpoints of the city and hiking trails. We went out to Bribie Island, which is north and east of the city at the southern edge of what's called The Sunshine Coast, a one hundred mile expanse of beaches and resort towns. At Bribie, we spent the day on the beach, swimming in the warm, calm surf and enjoying Queensland's sunshine and mild temperatures (summer is over here in New South Wales, but in Oz as you go north the weather turns warmer).

The highlight of the week, though (at least for the girls -- the highlight of the week for David, aside from the convention, was a birdwatching excursion with a couple of "twitchers" from the lab in which Nancy had been working. We saw some very cool birds, including several raptors and a couple of beautiful Australian finches. But I digress into birding nerd territory....) Where was I? Oh, yes. The highlight of the week was our excursion to Wet 'N Wild, Australia's largest water park!! Here, for more on that, are Alex and Erin:

At Wet 'n Wild we went on water rides. The first one was possibly the scariest. It was called Mammoth Falls. What you did was 4 to 6 people were in a tube, that is sort of like one of those inflatable baby wading pools. Then the ride attendant pushed you off and you have to paddle to get yourself going. The time that we went on it, Dad was sitting, holding onto the handles and he almost went flying off when we made a sharp curve and went up onto the side!!

Erin's favourite was a ride called the Mach 5. It was three slides in the middle that were called the jetstreams and they were almost totally sheer. Alex went on that. But there were two more slides on either side that were more gentle. These were called the Sidewinders and they were Erin's favourites. You went in a three person tube (One time the three of us went. The other, Erin went with dad and her friend Louise), and went along the curves of a water slide, and at the bottom you came out with a splash!!

Alex's favourite was the Blackhole. It was a waterslide that was in utter, total, complete darkness. You didn't know what would happen next. It was great!

Thanks, girls. Speaking as the one adult on this little jaunt I should add that from my perspective Wet 'N Wild was pretty awesome. I liked all the rides, particularly the sidewinders and another one called Terror Mountain that was similar to the Black Hole. Mammoth Falls was just as scary as Alex said -- for just an instant there I was certain that I was going to be thrown out of the raft. The park was located at the northern end of the Gold Coast, a stretch of amusement parks, tourist traps, and large, overpriced resort hotels along the Queensland coast south of Brisbane. It is, in many ways, the antithesis of the Sunshine Coast, which runs north of Brisbane. Where the Sunshine Coast has been kept largely natural, its coastline protected as city parks, state reserves, and even national parkland, the Gold Coast has been vastly overdeveloped. Days on the Sunshine Coast move at a leisurely pace; days on the Gold Coast are frenetic. If the Sunshine coast is, say, like North Carolina's Outer Banks, the Gold Coast is Six Flags America or DisneyWorld. You get the idea. Aside from our one day at Wet 'N Wild, we steered clear of the Gold Coast.

And now, for more about Nancy's research at the University of Queensland, here's the scientist herself:

I worked at the University of Queensland for four days in the lab of Dr. Craig Franklin, with Beth Symonds, one of his graduate students. It was a truly picturesque place to work. UQ has a beautiful central campus area; a large lawn surrounded by nine sandstone academic buildings (reiminiscent of Sewanee). One of these housed the School of Integrative Biology. Inside, the building was decorated all over with every kind of biological specimen one could think of. Anyway, my task was to get tissue samples from a species of burrowing frog. We hoped to get samples from at least four active and four hibernating frogs. Things went so well that we got samples from six active and five hibernating frogs (we are comparing the membrane phospholipids between the two groups). The complicated part was isolating mitochondria from two of the tissues of each frog. We accomplished our mission, and more. On a personal note, David, Alex, Erin, and I also made some very good friends. I was in the lab Tuesday - Friday the week after Easter. We had dinner at Craig's house that Thursday evening with some members of Craig's lab. (Hey Katie Craighill - Craig knows Steve Irwin!!) On Friday, I gave a short seminar to the Physiological Ecology group. Then Craig showed us all (including David, Alex and Erin) some of the saltwater crocodiles they work on - just babies, but these guys are the big ones you hear about. After that, the department had beers on the roof - it being Friday and all. Beth, who had been indispensible to my work, turned out to be a rabid birder, so she and a friend took David out birding on Saturday, after which we all went to her mom's house for a barbie (that would be cooked meat as opposed to plastic dolls). Beth, and probably Craig, will visit Tony's lab in Wollongong in June. We hope this is the beginning of a long and fruitful collaborative relationship between those in Wollongong and Brisbane, and hopefully Sewanee!

(Clockwise from above: The main campus of the University of Queensland at Saint Lucia, where Nancy did her research. A baby salt water crocodile. Note the electrical tape around the mouth. Even this small these crocs have razor sharp teeth. Nancy holding the croc as Erin looks on. Alex having a turn. Small as this baby is, the adults can grow to be up to twenty feet long. A full grown saltwater croc would find it as easy to carry Alex or even Nancy off as Alex and Nancy found it to hold this young one. Really. Below: the view from Noosa Heads on the Sunshine Coast.)

David here again. So all of this took us through the first half of our holiday -- a working holiday to be sure, but a holiday nevertheless. During the rest of the trip we played. On Sunday of that week, all four of us returned to the Sunshine Coast north of Brisbane. We drove up to a place called Noosa Heads, where we took a walk along the beach, ate at a nice cafe in town, and then enjoyed a beautiful walk along the rocky shores of the Coral Sea. The following day, our last in Brisbane, we went up into the Brisbane Forest Reserve, a large protected area just west of the city, where we went on another hike and found a great little cafe that served wonderful curried lentils (the girls had pancakes) and the best chai I've ever had (with all due respect to the good people at Stirling's and the Blue Chair).

On Tuesday, we drove from Brisbane to Lamington National Park, just north of the Queensland/ New South Wales border. Lamington NP is located in the Darlington Mountains, and in addition to containing some of the most dramatic mountain scenery in all of Queensland, it also preserves extensive tracts of high elevation rain forest. It's a gorgeous spot and we stayed on the western side at a place called O'Reilly's, which would normally have been too expensive for us. We happened to check their web site on just the right day, however and we were able to stay there for literally half the normal price, which still put it a bit on the dear side, but made it affordable enough to make it possible. Once again, we went on some terrific hikes -- even the girls enjoyed them -- saw some good birds and interesting animals, watched a couple of amazing sunsets, and got to see some very cool old growth forest. One of the most interesting trees we encountered there is called a Strangler Fig. Strangler Figs grow up on the outside of a host tree and over the course of many years, completely surround the host, and choke it until the host dies and the strangler is left standing in its place. They grow to be enormous and their trunks have a sort of braided look to them. Very cool plants, though I guess you don't want to stand still around them for too long, just in case....

(Pictures from Lamington National Park. Row 1 -- Left: The upper part of Elabana Falls at Picnic Rock, which we hiked to our first day there. Right: A Red-necked Pademelon. These small (two feet tall) relatives of wallabies and kangaroos were all over the grounds of the park and were incredibly tame. How tame? I took this picture with a regular lens, not a telephoto. Row 2 -- Left: I took this photo of the sunset our first night in Lamington from the balcony of our hotel room. Right: A Strangler Fig that has fully encased its host tree. This tree was huge -- at least 200 feet tall and so big around that it would have taken several people with their arms outstretched to encircle it. Row 3 -- Left: A stream along the Morans Falls trail. Nothing really significant about it, but it was so pretty I had to get a picture. Right: I took this photo of the mountains at dusk on the second night of our stay, also from our balcony, this time using a telephoto lens to highlight the different rows of ridges.)

After leaving Lamington, we drove south back into New South Wales and visited the wine regions of the Upper Hunter Valley and the farmland around the town of Mudgee. We went to several cellars to taste wines and had one truly memorable tasting. We went to the famed Rosemount Estates in the Hunter Valley only to find out that they had closed early that day for a private function. But when they heard that we were from the States and had come to the Hunter Valley specifically to see their winery, they gave us a private tasting -- just the two of us. They allowed us to taste a range of Shirazs and Chardonnays -- nine different vintages and labels in all -- explaining the differences in the grapes used, how they were grown, where and when they were harvested, etc. We learned more in an hour with the folks at Rosemount than we had in twenty years of drinking wines, including our time in California. It was fascinating and great fun. On the way to Mudgee we also got to see wild emus, birds that we'd been looking for since arriving in Australia. Emus are huge -- I believe they are the second largest bird in the world after the ostrich (if not, they're close). Like the Ostrich they're flightless, and they're also kind of funny looking. But it was a thrill seeing them.

(Above: The beautiful Saint Mary's church in Mudgee. Below: One of the Emus we saw from the road leading to Mudgee. Not a great picture, I know. But it was pretty exciting just seeing these birds in the wild. See how psyched the girls were?)

After Mudgee, we went home. And upon arriving back in Woonona, we discovered that we had left the door to the house open the whole time we were gone. Two and a half weeks. Nothing had been taken, or damaged. There was no sign that anyone had been in the house, which is pretty amazing, because when I say that we left the door open, I don't mean that we left it unlocked. I don't even mean that we left it ajar. We left it wide open, actually propped open against the wall. The screen door was closed, so there were no snakes or birds or possums living in the house. But it's a good thing we live in a neighborhood with little crime.

Our next trip comes in just a couple of weeks. We're going to Tasmania for eight days. And this time we'll check to make certain that the door is shut.