The Big Pineapple. You thought I was joking?!
We headed off around 10:30am. Change of plan then; we headed out instead to the "Big Pineapple". We'd passed it a couple of times before, it's pretty easily recognisable as there's a dirty great big pineapple by the roadside!
In actual fact, the "Big Pineapple" is more than just the big pineapple itself. It's a large pineapple farm that's also a tourist attraction; there are many tours around it but we only did the Plantation Train Tour.
Apart from pineapples, the plantation also grows a few other plants and fruits - including some I'd never heard of! We took the plantation train, after looking around the gift shop, trying to think of things to buy as souvenirs for those back home. Problem is I can't even think who to buy for - of course I need to buy sweeties for work but dunno what to buy my parents and stuff - am bored of buying thimbles and teaspoons!!
The train was cool, slow but cute. There was a kind of running commentary over the loudspeakers but actually quite often you couldn't hear it because of the rumble of the train. It was all quite open plan. We rode past bushes of lots of different types of plants and fruit, before stopping at a small platform halfway round ("Koala Junction"). Just before that, the driver got out and gave us a brief demonstration of pineapples, how they're grown, and the fact that the crop gets smaller for each subsequent year, so every two years they dig up the crop and replant it all! He also told us how to grow our own, like that's going to happen in Birmingham! "Leave it to dry for a few weeks", indeed!!!
At the station we got out and had a walk around. There were a whole series of animals to look at - almost like a mini zoo! The first thing to see were koalas, that looked just as cute in real life as they do in the form of teddy bears. Of course they're danged fierce in real life and you wouldn't want an angry one to come at you, claws flying!
Also in this section were some turtles, slow moving creatures in a sort of stop-motion early 80s cartoon way, they just didn't seem to move in real time. Their shells were also flatter than I expected them to be - maybe I've just seen too many tortoises and want to compare them both!
We also saw lots of brightly coloured birds. They didn't seem to be doing much but just resting on their perches, not that I suppose there's a lot you could do, except maybe dive-bomb the turtles! They were pretty colourful though - reds, blues, greens, yellows - well all except the mega-pigeon, which, I don't care if it's a big exotic bird with heritage and plumage, it's still a pigeon and therefore needs to be shot!!
A few emus were located along the far side - there's an obscure looking bird. I'm sure a long neck could be useful for snaffling food, but Lisa wondered how they manage to keep their heads held up for so long - they must be pretty heavy.
Wandered through the local rainforest to the other part of the animal zoo. Here we saw lambs, more birds, and an angora goat. In an enclosed walk-through shed Lisa bought some animal food that we could feed a couple with later, and we popped by a rat, some guinea pigs, chickens, more birds with colours that made them not seem out of place in a rack of soft toys in a birthday card shop, and a family of pigs!
We came to some alpacas, llama-like creatures with a spit fetish. Fortunately they didn't try to do anything nasty to us, we just gave them some of the food we'd bought. There were at least three of them in the pen but only one of them seemed interested in eating from us!
The last bit of the enclosure was given over primarily to kangaroos (there was also a large lake with birds and turtles). We did have to keep our distance as kangaroos are quite dangerous creatures! The ones we saw were pretty docile, in fact they all seemed to be asleep, or at least resting in the sun.
We didn't feed them but, after spending a little while around them and the lake, we went back to the alpacas and gave them the rest of it. They were a little more active and all three were interested this time, although when Lisa tried to feed one of them, he didn't want to know and turned away! (Though he was quite happy to eat from my hand!)
We wandered back to the train via a kookaburra, never seen one before but it's one of those creatures that's stereotypically Australian. The trains were every 30 mins but we'd spend nearly and hour here with the animals (longer than we expected?). Pretty soon we were on the train again, and apparently riding up the steepest hill/incline in Queensland! (cf the train who said "I think I can, I think I can" in the old kids story!) [Note that we could have walked up the hill from the animals back to the central zone with the gift shop but meh we're lazy!!]
Lisa said every time she goes to the Big Pineapple she has to have an ice-cream parfait - today was no exception. They were big, fab, and cheap! She had strawberry, I had macadamia nut (a native of Australia, though we do know of them in the UK).
Had another quick look around the gift shop but nothing jumped out at me. We went up the big pineapple itself; it had some info on pineapple production in it; then at the top I looked out over the place while Lisa went down and took a few pics of me.
We drove off to find lunch, and headed towards Maroochydore. Unfortunately we didn't time it too well. As we left the Big Pineapple we were overtaken by a fire engine travelling at some speed. Thought nothing of it until we got stuck in traffic a little way onto the Maroochydore Road and got passed by a couple of policemen! It soon became clear what was going on; evidently not long before we got there, there'd been a bit of a smash on the road and the road had actually been blocked off. We had to turn around and go another way, and indeed by the time we'd reached the main highway again, we noticed that the Maroochydore Road that we had just come down had been closed off by the police at that roundabout.
Lisa took the opportunity to show me her university, the University of the Sunshine Coast. It's not that big - only about 6 or 7 buildings in total - but it's in a nice location. And there can't be too many universities that have a kangaroo park in the middle of campus!! Not that we saw any there - they must have been hiding somewhere!
Arrived in Maroochydore and went back to the Big Top Shopping Centre. We had lunch there - a small donner kebab (in a tortilla rather than pita bread), chips with gravy (we had our own this time), and a drink. Having discovered it's existence yesterday, I had to have a lime milkshake.
Back in the days when I was but a wee nipper, we had a TV cartoon called "Bod". Nothing terribly hi-tec, but each episode had a segment involving a character called Alberto the Frog, who had his animal orchestra. In each segment, he always did something to help someone and got a reward for it, which he chose himself and it was always a milkshake. There then followed a little competition to guess the flavour. Normally he chose strawberry or chocolate or something normal; however on one memorable occasion he chose lime. At the time, and for many years later, I thought "Like, what??"; I'm not sure I've ever seen it for sale in the UK, nor was I sure if it really sounded that great! But having seen it for sale here, I just had to try it! And in fact it wasn't too bad! I preferred the spearmint but I'd have it again!
We stayed eating for a bit before heading back home. Spent some of the early evening typing in the travel diary and looking at some photos of Lisa at the theme parks on the Gold Coast in the mid-90s, before watching a series of stand-up comedians from around the world on TV, some of whom had a particular fetish in making jokes about Adelaide. After food (lamb and veg for main, we went out to McDonalds for a McFlurry a couple of hours later), we went online for a bit, before watching some more TV (Big Brother!) and then going to bed.
Weather was better today, when the sun was out it was hot, when it wasn't, it wasn't! I feel at home here!!