Off to Sydney

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Byebye Brizzy

My last full day in Brisbane I went to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. This is the oldest and largest koala refuge in the world. It was basically like a zoo, but only for native Australian wildlife. There were loads of koalas (as one would expect). I got to pet one and get my picture taken. Among the other wildlife were: dingoes, Tasmanian devils, wombats, many snakes, freshwater crocodiles, emus, kookaburras, platypusses (platypi?), and of course, kangaroos. The neatest part was a large park area with emus and kangaroos just milling about. Any zoo attendee could go in and just go up to the kangaroos, take pictures, feed them, lay on them, pet them; really anything you wanted to do. I took a few self portraits with some of the more sociable animals.

My transportation to get to Lone Pine and back was the city bus. This was dependable and worked well, except when it gets stuck in traffic. I missed one connecting bus and had to wait around downtown for an hour. The good things was that I was home for the State of Origin Rugby match. This was one of a series of three rugby games between Queensland and New South Wales that are basically equivalent to the Super Bowl. Queensland is the state in which Brisbane is located, and NSW is the state in which Sydney is located. I watched this rugby match with my hosts as we ate meat pies and TimTams... I felt very Australian. By the way, Queensland won 26-6, making the 3 game series tied at 1-1.

Sydney

I arrived in Sydney right at noon and was picked up by my friend Chris at the airport. He lives only about 15 minutes from the airport. He went to work at 2:30 (until 11:00pm), leaving me free range of the place. Downtown Sydney is a 45-minute walk from his front door. I went out walking just to see what I could see. This is a very artsy part of the city; there are a lot of cafes, secondhand stores, organic markets, etc. One thing I have notiIced, I tend to walk on the right side of the sidewalk (as most Americans do), but Australians walk and drive on the left. I can't tell you how many times I've almost ran into someone because I thought they were on the wrong side of the sidewalk, when, in fact, I was. I treated myself to some keema ko bara at The Nepalese Kitchen. This was a lentil fritter with minced lamb in the middle. Quite good. Dessert was TimTams (delightful Australian cookies, or "biscuits" as they're called here). I have three full days in Sydney before heading home. I think tomorrow I will go downtown to see the Opera House and Harbor Bridge. Saturday I may go to one of the nearby National Parks for some hiking. Who knows? I do know that before I leave, Chris will be making me some kangaroo steaks. There is a whole section in the grocery store of different cuts of kangaroo.

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