VIEW THE HERVEY BAY ALBUM (HERE)
Hervey Bay turned on a Whale of a Festival for us on Saturday 8th August 2009.
There really was quite an impressive turnout for the Hervey Bay Whale Festival, with more people than I thought possible, crammed onto the street to watch the parade and later indulge in all the delights of the fair.
Of course, we started with the traditional Bag Pipe Band, just to make sure everyone was awake, after sitting in the gutter for hours waiting for the parade to begin.
Local businesses stuck a range of blow up toys, some Christmas lights and other oddities to their vehicles and called them a float.
Others packed their parader's into cages like sardines and screamed like Halloween creatures at us as they drove past.
You could just see the excitement on their faces ... hardly being able to contain themselves with the jubilation of being a part of this magical event ... sort of.
Lots of costumes ... and bellies ... and ... err ...
I think Miss Piggy had her eye on me ... but I really don't know what Miss Piggy is doing in a Whale Festival, other than being "Weight Challenged" like me.
And just to make sure we hadn't nodded off ... they finished off with a marching band.
The fair grounds were a sea of people, so appropriate for a Whale Festival I suppose, but I seriously didn't think they would pack this many people into a Hervey Bay oval. Mr Whippy told me there was about 16,000 people packing into the fair this year. Imressive really.
There were all sorts of ways to help throw up the Dagwood Dogs, Ice Creams, Fairy Floss and German Sausages, like Rock Climging Walls, Rides and even a Bungee Bouncer. (See Photo Album) 
Of course, we had to finish off with a fireworks display that was ... err ... nice.
We've added another 62 photos for you to have a look at if you're interested.
MORE PHOTOS ADDED TODAY : HERVEY BAY ALBUM 9
MORE PHOTOS ADDED TODAY : HERVEY BAY ALBUM 9
If you would like to see some more photo's from this blog, please visit our PICASA Web Albums page!
Keep smiling ...
Darren & Kathy Gardiner
Darren & Kathy Gardiner
Thursday 6
Sadly, our Photographic Safari in Canada is over and now, we have to say goodbye to the beautiful people of Taipei as well. Our brief stay in Taipei was designed to give us a few days to wind down from our Canadian Safari and we did just that … however, we still couldn’t resist having a bit of a look around while we were there.
Only a block from the hotel, we felt adventurous enough to try a packed little local eating establishment, so in we went, where we were greeted by a Maltese Terrier with it’s tongue hanging out and a pair of ghostly eyeballs that I don’t think do a lot of visualising, which could be a good thing after seeing the buffet hot box. As many of you know, I’m all for trying new things and love to experience local foods, but when even I, can look at a huge array of hot boxes and have no idea what ANY of the foods on offer were, we decided to play it safe and move on. Sorry … but I do like to have at least some idea what animal, or part thereof I am about to inflict my stomach with.
The next day, we thought we’d see if we could pick up a bargain gadget or two, so again Mina wrote her suggestion in a language the Cab driver could understand and off we went. Harvey Norman eat your heart out … we got out of the Cab to see a six story Sony Ad with a welcoming double glass door at the bottom and after getting over the initial awe, in we went. The place was a computer market so to speak, with wait for it … 6 floors, with about 80 or 90 little computer, phone, sound, vision and gadget stores per floor, all packed to the eyeballs with enough stuff to see the gadget freak satisfied for the next millennium. Wow just isn’t a strong enough word. The depressing thing was that none of the prices, from Laptops to Cameras were particularly enticing at all. You can save about 10-20% on most things, but most items only come with a Taiwan warranty and to be honest, you can get the same sort of prices in Harvey Norman if you’re prepared to do a little haggling. Oh yes and across the road was a whole street of computer based stores for those who just didn’t get enough after leaving the 6 story I.T. extravaganza.
Another surprising thing was the lack of souvenir shops for the discerning tourist. Again, Mina came to the rescue with a card that got us to the ONLY souvenir shop we saw in Taipei. I really thought they’d be everywhere. This store did have 3 floors of everything from keyrings to fine art to choose from. So we picked up the few mandatory “I thought of you style” trinkets and it was back to the Hotel for the last supper. We decided to have dinner in the hotel and off to bed at a reasonable hour for the much dreaded bag packing before leaving for home. It took about 4 hours the next day, to reorganise the bags and distribute the weight within allowable limits, but we did it just right according to China Airlines with one bag having a comfortable 1kg buffer with the maximum limit. Nice!
Probably our biggest disappointment was the rather hard to find Bull Moose. Of all the wildlife I thought would have been on tap in Canada, the Moose was it. Their photo adorns magazines, postcards and blogs from this part of the world everywhere you look, and it’s one of the only animals we never managed to see. Well sort of … luckily, we found a decent statue of one, so here is the only Bull Moose we managed to see.
After leaving Elk Island, we took a Helicopter flight with Jamie from the Icefield Helicopter Tours base at Cline River over the Columbia Ice Fields which just helped enforce the sheer size and scope of these incredible Rocky Mountains. These ice fields are the head waters for all the fresh water rivers in Canada that flow East and West off the Continental Divide which is the highest ridge in Canada. In the days of the Ice Age, even the highest peak was covered in ice … sadly this ice is melting at an incredible rate.
Anyone who knows me, will know just how important it was for me to get those all important Beaver shots and with Paul’s keen eye and knowledge of this rather private animal’s habits, we lay in wait. After little more than an hour thumb twiddling and butt shifting in the swampy grass, sure enough … Benny the Beaver as we nicknamed him, clocked on for another hard day’s work. The old saying of “Busy as a Beaver” is more true than I imagined. These little guys work so hard building their impressive lodges, digging trenches, making dams, collecting branches for food and levelling huge areas of forest, all with those big teeth and tiny hands. Let’s just say, I’
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So this will be about the last of the Bear photographs for this trip, as tomorrow we have a short drive (about 10 or so hours) to our next destination, where we will begin to photograph some of the other scenery and wildlife we had on our list of things to do.
We started off with a very long drive in our huge GMC Suburban from the Quality Hotel Downtown in Vancouver at a little after 6:30am and after a few comfort breaks, free doughnuts from the girls at Tim Hortons and stops for food supplies, we ended up at the Chilko River Lodge and Guest Ranch (
This is truly Canadian Wilderness country, without a bitumen road or even electricity in sight. We’re staying in a homely rustic log cabin, with gas mantles for lighting, a wood stove for heating and yes … no electricity. There is a generator up at the lodge for power to download the thousands of photo’s taken each day, but nothing in the rooms. Housi and Annette are our hosts at the lodge and they have truly offered us the warm, friendly, welcoming host experience we were looking for.
The first few days have been dedicated to photographing the mighty Grizzly and Black Bears and we certainly haven’t been disappointed. We’ve found and photographed up to 25 Grizzly Bears each day. These bears are truly amazing creatures to be in the presence of and surprisingly calm when drifting as close as a few metres away in our 6 metre tinny. Watching the mothers guarding their cubs while they play, it’s very obvious that one eye is kept on us every second and I don’t think any of us would be met with welcoming arms if we ventured out of the boat. We’ve seen so many, it’s hard to keep track, but this has truly been an experience of a lifetime.
Just like this lovely mothers dress, we 
Hope you liked all the bad puns with matching photos, all taken at Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver, BC, Canada today.
He wrote down an address of a street where the Uni Students buy their gear which turned out to be a gem for purchasing the additional couple of Laptop Hard Drives we wanted. We bought a couple of Transcend 320Gb USB Drives for AUD$124.00ea … not bad for a brand name even I recognise. They had about 40 shops jammed next to each other full of laptops and every kind of computer part you can think of. Did I mention this is the place to buy laptops? There must have been literally thousands on display in this one street.
Apparently, the later flights like ours at 11:40pm to Vancouver are running on schedule, so at least for now, it looks like we’ll be leaving Taipei for Vancouver as planned on Sunday night.
