A Very Long Walk to Brisbane

To my dismay, because today is both Sunday and Easter, the trains didn't start running in time for me this morning. I bought a ticket on the Skybus to take me back to the airport, but the pick-up was a little over 1 kilometer away. Did I do the smart thing and call a cab? No, of course not. I strapped on my backpack, told myself it wasn't that far, and huffed and puffed my way down the street. Well let me tell you, when you have 21 kg (46 lbs!) on your back and 7 kg (15 lbs) on your front, it is one helluva long way. I finally made it (and learned a lesson too) and was on my way to the airport.

The first plane we were on had a malfunctioning fuel panel, but they quickly got us on a new plane and we were off. I arrived in Brisbane at 11 AM, checked into my hostel (this one has individual bathrooms for each room - hallelujah!) and headed out again. My plan for the day was to go see some of these guys at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.



The Sanctuary was excellent. They had all kinds of native life in easy to access enclosures. I saw cassowaries and wombats, in addition to many of the other animals I've seen in other places, plus lots of new bird species. I took a picture of this dingo because the Humane Society told my parents their dog is part dingo, but I don't really see the resemblance, except that he also looks kind of dopey.



One of the big dras to this place is that you can hold a koala! I found out they are not very heavy (although they are the heaviest tree based mammal without a tail, in case you were wondering) and they are very soft. I asked the handler if they were smart, and she told me no.



The other really neat thing about the Sanctuary was the kangaroo enclosure. You could buy food and feed them, and they were really tame. Much more timid than those goats back in Queenstown!



The last thing of the day there was a sheepdog show, which was really cool. It made me want to watch Babe again. Here are the dogs chasing the sheep around.



Later, one of the dogs corralled the sheep into a pen and then sat on them. It was kind of odd.

And that was pretty much it for today! Tomorrow I'm going out to Steve Irwin's zoo, the Australia Zoo. I'll let you know how it goes! Oh, and for one last picture, in case you were wondering how far the Lone Pine Sanctuary (and Brisbane) is from a variety of places all over the world, I thought this little display was interesting.