Brisbane

Today’s walk from the ship to the buses was the London Heathrow airport equivalent of a marine passenger terminal. It went on and on and on. It was actually half a mile from the ship to where the buses were parked.  You are exhausted before you ever start. Given my ailments, I am usually the slowest one now and I have to leave a lot more time to get from point A to point B. 

We are in Brisbane and they have just opened this new passenger terminal, which is approximately 10 miles up river from the ocean. This facility is brand new and it’s only been open for two years. It’s pretty far from the city and that’s because they had to move it so that ships could turn around in the widest part of the river.

Brisbane is the capital of Queensland, and is one of the oldest cities in Australia. It’s the third largest city in Australia after Sydney and Melbourne. Its first European settlers were the secondary offenders from the Sydney penal colony. Famously, it served as one of Douglas MacArthur’s Pacific headquarters during World War II. Among its riverside skyscrapers, the city is host to some decidedly less dramatic architecture: the quaint Queenslander homes, characterized by their terraces and raised living spaces, and old buildings wedged between huge modern structures. 

Today was supposed to have some rain, but it turned out to be absolutely glorious. Brisbane is located in the northern part of the subtropical region of Australia. It gets very hot and muggy here and it rains a lot. Today it was mid 80s and the humidity was tolerable. Both Michael and I had very early morning excursions, leaving at 8 AM!  My destination was to the koala sanctuary, and Michael was going to the Australia zoo.

My trip started with a panoramic tour of Brisbane, and then we arrived at the koala sanctuary.  There are approximately 130 koalas here, as well as other animals that cannot be released into the wild due to injury or illness. There was a long line of people wanting to take their picture with a koala, but they could not hold it. They could only touch it. Well lucky me, I had a picture taken with me holding a koala the last time I was in Australia, so I left the line and went looking to see what I could see. 

I looked at some koalas and then wound up watching a predator bird demonstration. We saw some different owls, and they flew back-and-forth – – big whoop. I then went looking for the crocodile, but could not find it, or at least could not see it as it was probably hiding. At that point, I decided to take it easy for the day and go back and look at the koalas. I’ve seen enough kangaroos so I wasn’t going to go look for them today. I saw some other animals. There were many koalas and some are quite active and they are absolutely adorable . You just want to hug them and hold them. 

Rainbow lorikeet

Dingo

Noisy Miner

Lazy nap time 

I am having trouble uploading pictures due to Internet issues. Check back as I will be uploading a lot more pictures when I get better Internet. I have pictures of a variety of birds, a dingo, kangaroo, and, of course, more koalas.

At the end of our visit to the sanctuary, we headed back to Brisbane for an additional tour of parts of the city that we had not seen before. We also made a stop to take a photo before returning to the ship. And then, of course we had to face the long walk back to the ship.  I only walked about 2.5 miles today. 

Brisbane 

Michael’s Turn:  Well, I didn’t get my first choice of excursions today, but I couldn’t be happier with what I did get – Steve  Irwin’s Australia Zoo.  I have been to some of the great zoos in our world, including both zoos in New York City, and San Diego, but I think Steve’s zoo is my favorite.  You are given the opportunity to celebrate the legacy of Steve Irwin and enjoy a memorable wildlife experience. The Australia zoo is located on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, and is still operated by the Irwin family, and includes on-site rescue and conservation programs.

The Irwin Family 

They have just about everything at the zoo, including an African area with giraffes, rhinos, elephants, tigers and cheetas, and of course, all the Australian animals including kangaroos, koalas, dingoes, and others. Of course, they have reptile areas where you can see monitor lizards, and Komodo dragons, and a bird area with just about every Australian bird you can imagine. The highlight of the tour is the visit to the Crockaseum for the croc show. Today, they brought out Bluey, an Australian crocodile who weighs in at 800 pounds.

This is a huge zoo and, of course, I had to see everything, I logged over 4 miles through it’s twisting paths, but enjoyed every minute of it. It took about an hour and a half to get back to the ship because we ran into traffic, but all is well that ends well.  The end was, as Beverly described, a half mile walk from the bus back to the room. I don’t know what the port planners were thinking.

Naturally, I needed a shower after this big excursion and then we proceeded up to the aft deck for cocktails and dinner. The evening was truly glorious. The weather was perfect, just a little bit of breeze, and a sail away out of the Brisbane river, along with some very, very good wine. An incredible end to an incredible day.