January 12. Day 12. They're a weird mob

There are so many things that you just accept as normal until you have the opportunity to see them through the eyes of an outsider. Once again I was playing tourist guide to our English visitors today.  They'd spent the night at the Gold Coast and we picked them up at Roma Street in the afternoon. A view of the city from the Mount Coot-tha lookout seemed like a no brainer. But then on the way home I decided to stop by one of my favourite haunts, the University of Queensland Lakes. As always there was an abundance of native wildlife on display. Some of my favourites - the corellas, the cormorant, the turtles were all doing their thing. There was even an added bonus of mother and daddy duck and their ducklings waddling along. As I suspected my new photography buddy was dead impressed. "God Australia has some weird wildlife," he said. Yeah we do. When you see those lakes and those birds

 as much as I do it's really easy to become a little blase. But even I admit they are odd which is probably what attracts me to them. I hope they never lose their magic.