Eli and I have been plotting a visit to Seaworld, on the Gold Coast, for ages, but we'd held off until Grandma Susan arrived for her visit. So, armed with plenty of enthusiasm and treated to a beautiful winter's day, off we went. As soon as we arrived we spotted some dolphins showing off in the shallows, which we all agreed was a pretty good start to the day!
There's so much to do at Seaworld that we needed a plan. We wanted to see some of the shows, but also wanted to make sure that we saw all of the sea creatures that Eli was excited about, ranging from sharks to stingrays to dolphins to penguins...here's a photo of Eli and I hatching a plan whilst looking at the map, complete with Eli's excitement about all of the things to see...
Our first activity was to feed the stingrays, yes, that's right, feed the stingrays. We bought some assorted stingray food (which consisted of all sorts of yummies ranging from prawns to fish and the odd squid) and then Eli and I offered up the treats to the stingrays in the feeding pool...pretty exciting stuff and as you might expect, Eli wasn't at all fearful, but he did lose interest if his offerings weren't gobbled up straight away.
A quick shirt change later (Eli still doesn't like having his clothes wet, even if it is just a drop!) we were hot-footing it off to see the dolphin show - which was pretty awesome. We particularly enjoyed the amazing jumps the dolphins were doing...
...not to mention the jumps the trainers were doing too, courtesy of the power of the dolphins - you can see one of the trainers in the photo below and he must be about 10 m in the air after diving down with the dolphins and being launched (off their noses) into the sky...like everyone else in the crowd, Eli thought that would be a pretty good job to have...
From dolphins we turned our attention towards the sharks. There's a great shark pool at Seaworld, which you can view both from above (hence the compulsory shark fin shot below) and below. As you can see from the second photo, it's not just a pool for sharks and we enjoyed seeing all of the fish too. I really liked the eagle rays swimming towards us in the underwater photo.
After stopping to refuel with some lunch, Eli and I revisited our detailed investigation of the map and learnt that Eli was just tall enough to ride the Flume Ride. He'd already seen it when we fed the stingrays and he was very excited to be able to go on it. Grandma Susan opted out, despite Eli telling her that there was nothing to be scared about, so Eli and I joined the queue. It was great fun going on a ride like this with Eli, travelling in a log-shaped boat along a waterslide, through a volcano, up a long ramp, into a castle and then whoosh!
If you zoom into that photo you can see what Eli really thought of the super-fast drop. Even after doing it he made that same face and said that he was scared, but that he also loved it and wanted to do it again (and again and again). Fortunately, the queue had grown enough (Eli really doesn't like queues at all, but then who does?) that I was able to convince him that we didn't really need to go on it again - and we still had lots of animals to see anyway!
Our next stop was for the polar bear, but he was just a brownish-white lump of fur lying on the ground, so we didn't stop for long. Fortunately, the new penguin display provided us with much better viewing opportunities, again both above and below water. It was amazing watching the King Penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) swimming in the water, especially since you could see the air bubbles that had been trapped in their feathers. Here are some shots of them diving down into the deep dark pool of their enclosure.
We were also able to get pretty close to them above the water - it was actually really cool (pun intended) to see them from just a metre or so away.
The penguin enclosure also had quite a few Gentoo Penguins (Pygoscelis papua) and we were treated to a pretty close look when three of them clumsily waddled up to the part of the enclosure we were standing at...
Armed with fresh memories of the excellent penguin exhibit, coupled with the knowledge that I've foolishly established a bit of an unwritten (until now) tradition of getting him a soft toy every time we visit a zoo, Eli decided that he'd like a penguin. It was pretty funny hearing him rationalise his decision and the justness of the purchase - according to Eli he'd been a good boy all day and he is spoilt, so he deserved it (as a side note, Eli can now finish the following dialogue, "Eli, you know what you are? You are....spoilt"). Can't really argue with solid logic like that, so here is with his new penguin, just before the final pirate show of the day.
We had a great time at Seaworld and no doubt we'll be back again (maybe when he's a bit taller so we can enjoy more of the rides!).
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