Apologies to those readers who are primarily interested in books and literature. I promise not to forsake you. In the long run, I won't. However, seeing as I am visiting my parents in sunny Queensland, I intend to chronicle my activities on this blog. Earlier today, I blogged about buying two first editions at a street market. Tomorrow I will visit Australia Zoo — home of the Crocodile Hunter.

The bus will be waiting at the RSL at 9.15am. It's about an hour's drive to the zoo, which is situated in the town of Beerwah, here on the Sunshine Coast. I've heard so much about Steve Irwin, who was killed while filming a nature film late last year, that I simply must go and see what all the fuss is about. It may be very educational. You never know.

The next day, I will catch a suburban bus — the 622 — that departs Sunshine Plaza at 9.20am. My destination is Mount Coolum, which is visible at most points along the estuary of the Maroochy River and along the Sunshine Coast.


Mount Coolum is a prominent feature of the Sunshine Coast, and is included in Aboriginal stories that chronicle the creation of the area's landscape. It is "between 25 and 26 million years" old, according to one Web site I found. It is also extremely bio-diverse.

The site has been intensely studied and over 700 plant types are now documented. This includes 590 flowering plants, 49 ferns and over 100 species of the lesser plants such as mosses, liverworts, lichens etc. By way of comparison, there are only 1400 species in all of Great Britain.

For those of you who are interested, I am currently reading All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. The amount of time I can devote to reading, however, is considerably less, on a daily basis, than that which is available to me when I am residing in Sydney.