1770--First Landing of Captain Cook in Queensland

There is a town 6 hours North of Brisbane named "1770". It is the only town in the world (according to their records) to have a number for a name. It is the first place Capt. Cook landed in QLD in the year--you guessed it! 1770!! We joined a group of people Friday morning and took a boat out to sea 32 miles to Lady Musgrave Island, a natural coral cay situated on the Great Barrier Reef, surrounded by a deep water navigable lagoon. The island is known to be a bird paradise and entrepreneurs at one time came there to collect and sell bird excrement. We did enjoy bird watching during a brief "stay on the path" tour of the island. Here is a fascinating pre-historic-looking bird that we saw circling above:

The highlight for both of us was snorkeling in the beautiful blue lagoon.
Hundreds of different kinds of coral and tropical fish and they assured us no tiger sharks. There are an unbelievable number of things that can kill you in AU though--the Box Jelly Fish has tentacles up to 3 meters long (about 120") and they are such thin strands of fiber they nearly impossible to see until it's too late. They're in the warmer waters in the Northern part of AU in months containing an "r" (doesn't leave many does it?). There's also something called a "cone shell" that looks pretty benign, but no time to get it even to the car let alone in a collection.

Here is the pink LARC amphibius vehicle that we went to see the inaccessible lighthouse
We had a ball sledding down a huge sand dune with a bunch of the kids on the boat. Gini said her life would have been very boring if she had married most anyone else. Another sexagenarian also went down with "us kids". Her husband had lost both legs while serving in Australia's army 42 years ago. She said he wants her to experience everything in his stead. They were a very inspirational couple and showed the grit of a lot of Australians whom we've come to love and admire.
Here's Gene putting on foot brakes so he won't slide right on in to the ocean at the bottom of the dune and Gini trying to keep on the straight and narrow!

After this fun 4-day holiday Gene came back for a final week of work at the Royal Brisbane Hospital. Today, 22 Oct, is his 65th birthday. Tomorrow we fly to Sydney and then on to Hawaii for 4 days with Carl and Barb, Gene's brother, before heading back to our "up over" home.