Townsville, Day 2

Some touristy things are blah and some are great.  Reef HQ is great.  It's a living, self-feeding constructed bit of coral reef, right in the centre of the city, flushed with seawater, but otherwise pretty natural.  With the huge plus that there is glass between you and the sharks or irukandji jellyfish. One fellow told us that he doesn't know why he bothers to go out with the scuba and the boats, when this coral reef is just as good. We took masses of photos, as you can imagine.

This is a brown nurse shark

This is Nemo, a clown fish, that lives in the anenome

This is an eagle ray.  I love its smiley expression. Looks just like Peter Costello, according to David.

These corals fluoresce in the deeper parts of the reef.

This is a Crown of Thorns starfish

This is burrowing giant clam

And finally, these are two leopard sharks.  They swam round and round the tank like this, with him nibbling on her pectoral, and her maintaining a patient expression.  Don't know what it was all about.  They are a breeding pair, so perhaps this is shark-talk for "Hey, baby..."