Day 76 - Sea World

Today was a fairly early start.  Not only were we headed to Sea World which was about 80km south of Brisbane, we had decided to kill two birds with one stone and get the exhaust on the car replaced in Burleigh Heads, so we had to drop the car off first.  The Taipan dealership was based here and we had been having troubles with the exchaust since installation so they were going to replace it altogether.

So we arrived at Burleigh Heads at about 9am.  The theme parks don't open until 10am so there is really no rush to get there early.  We got a lone car then drove to Surfers Paradise which is where Sea World is.  We now had our VIP passes so we got through the gate pretty quickly.

The first thing we did was go to the Sea Lion show.  Very funny.  They had a fantastic setting and they basically acted out a little show so it was most enjoyable.

After this we headed to the dolphin show.  This was also fantastic, the kids had never seen anything like this before and they were just amazed.

Throughout the whole day there were shows to see and all sorts of feeding sessions to view.  There were also a couple of roller coasters and other rides for us to go on.  Glen managed to convince Tori to go on the roller coasters with her, I took Shannae and Cody to some smaller rides.  The kids enjoyed a wonderful ice-cream for afternoon tea, then we went and saw the shark tank and the polar bear enclosure, both of which had underground viewing galleries, we could have sat and watched through the glass for hours. And wouldn't you believe it.... during our wanderings we run into Trace's brother Darren, what a small world!!!  Great to see a familiar face.

Then, Mum made the whole family go on the mono rail around the park, because I thought we couldn't really leave without doing that, it was while we were travelling on this that we discovered Castaway Bay, which was this massive climbing obstacle course for the kids.  We couldn't believe we hadn't discovered it earlier, as we were about to head out the gate.  The children decided there and then that we will have to come back in January!!!!!

We watched an awesome jet ski show before heading out of the park and battling the traffic back to pick up the car.  It was a brilliant day.  There was just so much to see and do and the crowds weren't too bad, which made a big difference.

We picked up the car, then on the spare of the moment we decided to visit our travelling buddies, who we met in Broome, as they lived just around the corner.  It was great to see them again, they had been home for about a month now after travelling for about 9 months, so it was really nice to see how they had settled in and how they were coping with "life after the van"!!  It was a short visit but we made plans to catch up when we get back.  I don't know if the month of January is going to be long enough!!!

We then decided to get takeaway before tackling the hour and a half drive back to Samford Valley where we were staying.  We were all pretty exhasuted when we got home by about 8pm but what a great day.