We got back from Lady Elliot Island and picked up our rental car. Driving on the opposite side of the road was tricky, but we had a “nanny” car that warned us when we drifted too far to the left. We set off for O’Reilly’s Rainforest Lodge.
Our road lead through Maryborough, home of P.L. Travers, who wrote Mary Poppins. There evidently are other attractions in the town, but we didn’t explore very much.
We stopped at Ausworld for lunch. We didn’t know what it was until we got there – but it sounded like something that might have food. They did – it turned out it was a fun ride park. (We didn’t go on any rides.)
And we stopped the Australian Zoo.
We also hadn’t planned to stop at the zoo, but couldn’t resist. I thought it would be a small local zoo, but it was started (owned?) by Steve Irwin (Crocodile guy) and was a surprisingly large (expensive!) zoo, with lots of room for all the animals, which I like to see (although, in general, I have ambivalent feelings about zoos). (Later, a tour guide sniffed that it had non-Australian animals – giraffes and tigers, etc. – so why was it call the “Australian” zoo? But we stuck to seeing the Australian animals anyway.)
We continued on. The final road to the top was very twisty, and often one-way. Scary!
We arrived at sunset. It was gorgeous.
