The dream becomes real

Tickets have been purchased and reservations made. A few surprises, pleasant and otherwise, along the way. Frequent flyer seats are long-gone (and I thought I was reserving early), but Qantas's Airpass worked out to be a terrific deal. Covered all my flights within Australia with one cheap exception. Means I'll be flying coach instead of business, but c'est la vie. The miles I would have spent are worth far more than what I'm paying and will certainly be put to good use.

One of the joys of planning this trip has been connecting with Karen Kokoschke, the Marketing Director of Banksia Adventures. First she offered to take me free of charge to see the Urimbirra Zoo at night. Now she has offered to drive/tour me to Cape Jervis where I catch the ferry to Kangaroo Island at the same reasonable rate. The tour is supposed to be very special, including a chance to see 100's of kangaroos in the wild. That's something I thought my itinerary would make me give up. The only hitch is dealing with the rental car, but Karen thinks that can be worked out. She says there's a new office of Eurocar in Victor Harbor, but the folks at Eurocar don't seem to know about it. Will give it a couple of weeks and try again.

No whale trip this week. Not enough sign-ups and the weather was iffy. Last week was excellent with some very cooperative whales and more risso's dolphins. Nice warm weather didn't hurt either.

Planning progress and other fun

Looking at specific flight times has caused me to juggle the schedule a little bit. Rather than flying from Adelaide to Cairns and then working my way south to Brisbane, I will fly to Brisbane and work my way north. This will let me add a day each in Sydney and Cairns and still be on Heron Island for the full moon reef walk. The Cairns addition is to allow for a platypus watching trip, a great chance to see them in the wild. Cairns is the first location for which I have a hotel reservation. I'll be at the Outrigger.

This past Saturday marked my first whale watch of the year and it was rather successful. We had at least four gray whales, but none of them was very cooperative. A mixed pod of Risso's and Pacific White-Sided dolphins came right up to the boat, exciting everyone including the crew. This was the first time I got a chance to speak about these species and it got me thinking even more about adding to my species list this year when I finally get to Oz.