More from Gold Coast, Australia

I stayed at the Marriott in Surfers Paradise north. They have their own salt water reef pool. They pump water in from the inlet behind the hotel, filter it, and use ozone to kill the bacteria. The reef pool has fish and you can swim with them. I swam there a couple times.

The bottom of the reef pool is sand and part is simulated coral.

They have a fish feeding program in the morning to see and feed the reef fish.

Between posting and grading assignments as we are using online learning while school is closed, I took a short afternoon tour to the rainforests of Springbrook and natural bridge as well as the Goondawanna rainforest. It was a rainy overcast day.

On the way we saw a Padi Melon wallaby in the park along the side of the road.

He is pretty well camouflaged. I had to make the picture larger to see him.
This area was an erupted volcano that water eventually eroded some of the rock leaving behind rock not easily eroded.
The light brown is a strangler fig that grows from the top down from seeds dropped by birds. It eventually kills the tree it grows against that takes 150 years.
This is the outside of strangler fig that had killed the inner tree. The fig will continue to live another 400 years after.
This is the home of a big spider that is the size of the hole. It weaves a web inside connected to the front which makes a trap door. It senses movement and opens the door to grab prey. Not fatal bites to us but painful.
Under the natural bridge is a cave with bats. They eat insects.
We then climbed to the top to see the sources of the waterfall.
A curious lizard in saw along the path.
We saw several species of figs. This one had a red skin and was yellow on the inside. It was very sweet and a good tasting fig.

Back at the hotel, I went back to grading assignments when I heard a commotion outside. Two birds lighted on my balcony and kept me company for awhile.

Next I head back to Brisbane for a few days.