2/19/02 Brisbane, Ausi (Kelly)
So I've really decided I like Brisbane alot more than I do Melbourne. I actually felt like I had a real OZ experience today! This morning we walked down to the Victoria Bridge and loaded onto the Mirimar Boat, the oldest wooden boat for tourists in existance (in OZ anyway), which took us down the Brisbane River. The guide spoke all about the history of Brisbane and the suburbs as we passed them. For about an hour and a half we listened all about the history of the Brisbane River floods and the damage they caused (1st in 1893 and the 2nd in 1974), the buildings that are on the water front, and the parks that sit on the banks. Finally we arrived at our destination... The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. This is definitely the coolest place to see native animals...sure beats the zoo. It had an entire open field where you could walk in and roam around with the kangaroos and emus. We took some really up close and personal shots with the animals. Phillip decided he was going to lay down next to a roo. What I haven't told you yet though is basically the enire field was covered with droppings, so Phillip searched around for the one clean spot to lay down. When he got down there, he said it smelled soooo bad. Well duh, just because there was no shit on the ground doesn't mean the animals haven't peed there...GROSS!! Oh, about the emu, this bird was so huge and so ugly no wonder The Bare Naked Ladies refer to emu's as exotic pets! After we left that section we wondered over to the koala area. These animals are so adorable I just wanted to take one home with me. They wouldn't let me take one so I settled for holding one instead. This place was so funny...as you walk around there are turkeys, peacocks, and all sorts of fairly big lizards sharing the sidewalk with you. Other animals we saw were wombats, a tasmanian devil, and lorikeets (a bird that looks like a rainbow.) We took a city bus back into town, walked around a bit and came back to the YHA. It was definitely a good OZ experience day!
Posted by Admin at February 20, 2002 06:45 PM