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Published: January 16th 2009
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After a four hour journey from Harvey Bay we found ourselves in Brisbane. The city was buzzing - it was full of people doing their Christmas shopping, there were brass bands playing (although we couldn't spot Harold Bishop and his tuba) and there were choirs singing Christmas carols. We were loving it and it was the first time it had felt like Christmas time!
With only a few days to spend in Brisbane we had a pretty busy schedule of things to do and places to go! First stop, Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. We hopped on the local bus which took us straight to the door and before we even got into the entrance gate we came face to face with an Eastern Water-dragon. Not realising at the time that they weren't actually that rare (considering we came across about another fifty throughout the duration of the day), we wasted about twenty minutes snapping away and taking far too many photos! When we finally entered into the Sanctuary we headed straight past the massive bats (like those batman stylee ones we had seen in Cairns) and to the Koalas. There were so many and they were soooo cute...even Ian loved
them! We found the Koala cuddling station, where we could hold a Koala and have a photo taken, but unfortunately a Japanese tourist bus had obviously just arrived at the same time as us and they had taken over the entire place, so we decided to wait for a while and return later to have our photos taken!
So to occupy ourselves in the meantime we headed to see the Kangaroos. We were both really excited as this would be our first encounter with a Kangaroo! I spent most of my time taking at least a million photographs of a Kangaroo with a Joey, which kept popping out of her pouch to play, whilst Ian chilled with the other Kangaroos and made some friends (including Mr Snoop Doggy Roo) (older people reading this may may need this explaining to you by younger folk!)!
We spent hours with the Kangaroos and fed them too, which was cool. Then we headed back to the Koalas where we parted with our cash for a hold and a photograph with one...and it was worth every penny! The first Koala i was given to hold really didn't want to be there - she
was horny and wanted to be with the male koala's having fun, not with an English tourist teasing her with just a cuddle! Finally, after about four attempts she hung onto me for all of five seconds, the staff got a sneaky picture and that was that. They told Ian they would get another koala out for him to hold and I think they felt sorry for me because I had hardly got to hold the other one and I'd been ripped to shreds by it's claws (look closely on the photos and you'll be able to see the red marks!), so they said I could have another cuddle with the next one they bought out - bonus! So Ian then had a cuddle, he had a photo, then we had a joint photo and I had another hold. We talked to the keepers about the koala's whilst giving it a good old stroke, and went away as happy as Snoop Rooey Roo getting his gangsta walk on.
Next we headed to see the Lorikeet feeding. The keepers there poured out some milky food onto a dish and invited people in the audience to pick them up so the
Parakeets could feed off them. Ian jumped in there and before he knew it he was covered in Parakeets, one of which mistook his head for a toilet! I kept telling him it was supposed to be good luck to get pooped on but I'm not sure he was convinced! His t-shirt was also covered in watery poo and after a wash or two the stain still hadn't come out, so I think his words were "I'll send it home for mum to get it out!" - have fun Alison!
Later that day we headed out to experience Brisbane's night life and meet up with our mate from the Africa trip, Stacey. After a few drinks and several phone calls later to Stacey's mobile, we finally met up with her and caught up over yet another beverage! Luckily we had left the following day free just in case we needed time to recover, and it was much needed.
Next on the agenda was Australia Zoo baby! And crikey, it was fun! As soon as we entered the zoo we came across a guy holding a baby alligator and next thing we knew the guy was offering for us
to hold it whilst we each had a photo taken...brilliant! We strolled around the zoo, looking at loads of different animals of which the Australian ones interested us most - the Echidna, Wombats and Tasmanian devils (although they were asleep) to name but a few! We also saw Red Kangaroos and I fed Skippy some water out of my hand - so cool! Next we ventured to the crocoseum to see the croc show. As well as croc's we got birds, snakes, reptiles and elephants - it was great! We also got involved in a shouting match across the stadium - each side had to shout 'CRIKEY' as loudly as they could...think our side lost miserably! The zoo hadn't been as big as we'd expected but none the less we'd had a great time there.
Next stop, Byron Bay!
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