We saw Crocodiles in the wild!

09/07/2004

Hehe! Made you look. We left our hostel early in the morning for a visit of Rainbow beach. Our gas tank was running low but we decided to chance the next station as the gas prices were a little high. Unbeknownst to us, the next station was quite far from the last one. Our tank soon showed empty and an alarming red light flashed, reminding us of our impending doom. I pictured us stuck in the middle of nowhere with no gas and the next day's headlines would say "Two stupid American tourists were caught unaware and eaten by land sharks. Only their dirty travel cloths remain". Seeing no stations, I started sweating quite profusely, praying to God that we would make it to the next one. We did. Thank you God, I'll go to church next Sunday (maybe). This is quite embarrassing as a similar incident happened to us two days ago exactly and we had to ask the nice station manager to open his store and pump us full of gas. We made a firm pack NEVER to let the car run on less than 1/4 full.

As soon as we arrived at Rainbow beach, we headed to the information booth. 4x4 Jeeps were advertised to visit the beach. We were stoked and about to shell out the big bucks until we noticed a posting board full of pictures of stranded Jeeps wading in deep sea water--they were caught mid-tide and unable to drive back to shore. After this alarming realization, we decided to take a quiet Canoe ride.

The ride brought us through prehistoric-looking Mangroves. Ammo was very disappointed not to see a crocodile in the wild but I enjoyed myself immensely--most of time I pretended to row so didn't strain myself much. Ammo also decided to serenade me to "Row row row your boat" in a shockingly feminine register while the sun went down.

http://pix.alaporte.net/pub/24-Australia/13-Great_Sandy_Park/

http://pix.alaporte.net/pub/24-Australia/14-Rainbow_Beach/