Ben having a swim!

Ben ran and ran, and ran, and managed to find every pool of water to race through (same old Ben eh mum?!) on the beach before we reached the sea. Andy and I were walking barefoot on the wet sand before we caught sight of thousands of little crabs marching towards us, the ‘thongs’ (flip-flops for those I haven’t educated yet) soon went on then! They were very bizarre with pale blue backs, and there was a king/queen crab that was about 10 times bigger than the others marching along too.
Next stop was the park at the marina, all parks here are fantastic – they without a doubt will have a cold water tap (great for dogs, and us!) and picnic tables and almost always have one or more BBQ’s, complete with gas and hotplate so all you do is bring the meat!! Even in these harsh winter conditions (;-p) there are people cooking up their dinner in the parks.
Finally, we went to the Harbour Beach at the Marina, where the sea is much closer, so Ben had a good swim here, which just about finished him off for the day! The sea is quite warm even now, so it’s an ideal time for swimming because between October and May you have to be really careful about swimming in the sea due to the ‘stingers’ – all the jellyfish are about then and some are so lethal that they can kill you. The worst thing is that their tentacles are so long that you could get stung and not even be able to see the jellyfish.
We drove back from Mackay with an exhausted Ben sprawled out on the back seat and me squashed in the corner.