Mar 1st - Brisbane Day2

Today we are doing the 2 must see items in Brisbane. We started the day with the 1st one - The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. As we want a break from driving, and we love boats, we booked a river cruise return ticket to the site with 3 hours to spend there looking around.

We walked 15mins up the road, and over Victoria Bridge, to our wharf to catch the boat. On the way we passed thru a pop up market so we had a quick look around there. We eyed up a nice apple pie so we made a mental note to pick some of that up on the way back if it is still there.

The apple pie stall is here somewhere

So onto our boat for a 1hr odd ride up river. We stayed inside as it was around 34c though slightly cooler on the boat. Again, we saw lots of very expensive riverside houses and apartments. We also had morning tea onboard.

View from the rear of the boat

More expensive riverside dwellings

Morning tea and cake anyone?

So let’s crack onto the good stuff. The sanctuary does not just have Koalas though there certainly have a lot of those. We passed on holding one - we still haven’t managed to remove the stains from our last encounter.

They have koalas and baby ones which we both oohhhh’d and ahhhh’d at.

Mummy Koala with baby koala below

This koala was not impressed by Mark by its expression

They have a little outdoor restaurant area with koalas very close by and this one was Mark’s absolute favourite.

One laid back koala

There were bats, all sorts of birds and some Tasmanian Devils.

Start with bats at the entrance before building up to the koalas

A sleepy little devil

We also saw our first platypus.

Very hard to photograph these fast creatures but you should be able to make out it’s face

Pam also managed to stroke a Dingo as it passed by her with it’s handler.

Two of the Dingos in their run

Next up was a crocodile talk, which was very interesting.

This was followed by a birds of prey demo where birds were flying around us and over our heads.

Pam says this is the barking owl

A barn owl which was an quiet elegant flyer

Next up were sleepy wombats and Pamela’s latest attempt at feeding Kangaroos. It was so hot that the kangaroos were not interested in coming to be fed so Pamela had to act as a delivery driver and feed kangaroos breakfast in bed style. However, kangaroo number 3 took a shine to Pam and insisted she was a personal butler and demanded all the food and tried to block all others from the food.

Not the best pic but this a unconscious wombat

Pam and her kangaroo

We also saw a joey in its mother’s pouch - well sort of.

The legs of a joey

Our final item was a sheepdog demonstration. We love seeing these intelligent dogs at work and after rounding the sheep thru various obstacles the dog was rewarded with a dip in a big dog pool.

Pity the animals with their coats in this heat

So off back to the city but here is one more koala pic.

Once back in the city we found that stall that sold us the apple pie and another shop that sold us ice cream and it was back to our room for late afternoon dessert.

We then did a little bit of shopping and found a lovely old looking arcade. Pam found some lightweight trousers and some shorts so she was happy.

It’s no Leadenhall Market but still lovely.

Onto the 2nd must do item in Brisbane. Mount Coot-tha at sunrise or sunset. We chose sunset as we are not getting up at 5am tomorrow. It did mean asking for our car to be retrieved from the underground car park via the hotel’s clever lift system. 20mins later, in rush hour traffic, we managed to see some very nice views of Brisbane as the sun set though the actual sun set behind trees!

Mark trying to figure out where the sun was sitting whilst Pam photographed the view

The best we took, we are sorry to say

After driving back we ended the day with a short walk to the Riverside area. It is basically the other side of the Story Bridge where we were yesterday. We decided to just pick up a pasta meal and finish off our doggy bag from yesterday.

Farewell Brisbane. We loved visiting.