I wish I could say I got up at the crack of dawn to experience Brisbane fully, but the truth is I slept until after 9am and then leisurely got ready for my day. I attempted communication with my 3 Asian roommates, but gave up when I realized we had a common language of about 4 words. Instead I set into town to buy lunch and catch the bus to the Koala Sanctuary a friend from Brisbane had recommended. I wandered up and down Adelaide Street, looking for bus 445 near the town hall as listed in the flyer for the Sanctuary. Luckily there was a phone number for the bus company who notified me that the bus actually picks up on Ann Street, parallel to Adelaide on the other side of the town hall. This was getting to be a theme with Brisbane. But I eventually found it and was at the Koala Sanctuary within an hour.
The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary is the oldest in Australia (first started with only 2 koalas 80 years ago - that couldn't have been a very interesting visit) and now the largest. One of its main attractions is the "Cuddle a Koala" section where you can hold a koala and have your picture taken. This is only allowed in the state of Queensland. I got there minutes before the sheep dog demonstration, and spent the next 90 minutes dashing from that to the koala talk to the kangaroo talk. All were so interesting. I spent the rest of the day feeding kangaroos, petting koalas and observing other local animals like wombats, crocodiles and birds. I was having such a great time I had finally gotten the kookaburra song out of my head. Then of course, the last animal I saw before I left was, you guessed it, the kookaburra and the song proceeded to drive me crazy for the entire bus ride back to Brisbane.
Back in Brisbane, I decided to stop in for a cheap dinner at a hostel with an attached bar/restaurant. I had planned to then head back to my hostel to change into something warmer (the nights in Brisbane were fairly cool) but got talking to my two neighbors, lawyers who had stopped in for the cheap meals. Both lived in Brisbane, although one was originally from South Africa. We had a great time chatting about places we'd been and the Aussie kept me entertained with his detailed account of a few weeks spent in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. (Not exactly the benchmark for life in America!) I was about to head out when the bar announced the start of the trivia competition, and the three of us decided to enter under the team name "Rock the Casbaw" (Casbaw being a combination of our initials). Wow, were we bad. I knew that Chinese brides wear red, but other than that I was pretty useless. Did you know brontophobia is the fear of thunder? We didn't leave until after 1am (and I had gotten there at 7) and one of the guys dropped me off at my hostel in a taxi on his way home. Luckily my bus wasn't until noon the next day! I felt worse for the guys who had to be in court the next day (or maybe I should have felt worse for the guys they were defending). A three hour bus ride to Byron Bay and into a completely different world!
The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary is the oldest in Australia (first started with only 2 koalas 80 years ago - that couldn't have been a very interesting visit) and now the largest. One of its main attractions is the "Cuddle a Koala" section where you can hold a koala and have your picture taken. This is only allowed in the state of Queensland. I got there minutes before the sheep dog demonstration, and spent the next 90 minutes dashing from that to the koala talk to the kangaroo talk. All were so interesting. I spent the rest of the day feeding kangaroos, petting koalas and observing other local animals like wombats, crocodiles and birds. I was having such a great time I had finally gotten the kookaburra song out of my head. Then of course, the last animal I saw before I left was, you guessed it, the kookaburra and the song proceeded to drive me crazy for the entire bus ride back to Brisbane.
Back in Brisbane, I decided to stop in for a cheap dinner at a hostel with an attached bar/restaurant. I had planned to then head back to my hostel to change into something warmer (the nights in Brisbane were fairly cool) but got talking to my two neighbors, lawyers who had stopped in for the cheap meals. Both lived in Brisbane, although one was originally from South Africa. We had a great time chatting about places we'd been and the Aussie kept me entertained with his detailed account of a few weeks spent in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. (Not exactly the benchmark for life in America!) I was about to head out when the bar announced the start of the trivia competition, and the three of us decided to enter under the team name "Rock the Casbaw" (Casbaw being a combination of our initials). Wow, were we bad. I knew that Chinese brides wear red, but other than that I was pretty useless. Did you know brontophobia is the fear of thunder? We didn't leave until after 1am (and I had gotten there at 7) and one of the guys dropped me off at my hostel in a taxi on his way home. Luckily my bus wasn't until noon the next day! I felt worse for the guys who had to be in court the next day (or maybe I should have felt worse for the guys they were defending). A three hour bus ride to Byron Bay and into a completely different world!
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