February 23 - Is there anything cuter than a koala?

As usual I’m behind and I have no excuses except I’m having too much fun.  Yesterday the 22nd we had a sea day.   Our new team gathered and Miss Kitty came to give us luck.  It didn’t work.  We are back to doing cumulative trivia so it’s not a big thing.  The spread between low and high scores was 30 points and we’re right in the middle so plenty of time to make that up.  The most notable thing other than trivia was that the Seabourn president was onboard and had both a question and answer event and then two hours later a cocktail party.  I missed the first (I’d had such an event with her last year) and apparently she only answered what she wanted to and blew off the ones she didn’t.

Now to the fun stuff today.  We docked in the port for Brisbane, the third largest city in Australia and capital of Queensland. The city lies on the Brisbane River and has a population of around 2.6 million.  As with every place I’ve been in Australia it was inhabited for thousands of years by aboriginal people. Two explorers whose names I’ve mentioned before came to this area.  Captain Cook sailed into the bay at the mouth of the river in 1770.  In 1799 Matthew Flinders, who mapped Kangaroo Island, landed at a point which is now part of greater Brisbane. It wasn’t until 1823 that the Governor of New South Wales gave orders for the development of a new penal settlement north of Sydney and Brisbane was born.  Coincidentally the Governor’s name was Sir Thomas Brisbane.  (Is it a good or a bad thing to have a penal colony named after you?)

By the end of the 19th century Brisbane had become a major port and a center for immigration.  For World War II history buffs, the Allied Command for the Southwest Pacific was based here as was General Douglas MacArthur’s command.  Today Brisbane is a city with towering modern skyscrapers and lots of cranes visible on the skyline.  Interspersed are old, historic houses which our guide Toni called “Queenslanders.” These are buildings with a wide veranda, sometimes with fairly ornate latticework trim. The style was built to try to maximize breezes in the sultry climate, sort of like older houses we can see in our south.  In some instances to make room for stores or cafés, the Queenslanders were lifted up and placed on top of the new construction.  In 2032 Brisbane will host the Summer Olympics and Summer Paralympics so building is going on everywhere.

Modern Brisbane

Just to give you an idea this is what a Queenslander house looks like except this one doesn't have lattice work trim

The old Main Train Station

I had booked a tour to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary this morning and we set out on the bus.  The port is quite a long way from the city through a largely industrial area.  Evidently the sanctuary is on the other side of town so we got a tour of Brisbane as we drove through.  The guide was excellent and she pointed all kinds of things along the way.  Unfortunately from a bus you can’t 1) take very good photos and 2) if you’re on the wrong side of the bus even get a glimpse.  I was on the wrong side and I think 75% of what she pointed out was visible from the other side. C’est la vie.

The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary is the world’s first and largest koala sanctuary.  It’s home to over 100 koalas and more than 75 species of other Australian animals.  It was started in 1927 by a Queenslander named Claude Reid who realized that something had to be done to protect this very iconic Australian species.  At the time they were being culled for the fur trade.  He began with two koalas, Jack and Jill, and over the years it grew to today’s park which also includes a hospital, scientific institute and education department.

A couple of things about today’s visit.  First, it was very crowded at Lone Pine.  There were lots of school groups in addition to regular visitors.  Second, it was blazing hot and humid!  If this was a presage of the days to come as we travel further north, then I’m going to really have to get myself prepared.  I had hoped that I might be able to hold or at least touch a koala but that didn’t happen.  I gather that to hold one reservations have to be made.  Also the temperature has to be considered because the koalas can become overheated when the hot ambient temperature is combined with that of the people holding them.  They do, after all, have their lovely fur coats on.  We all had to be content just watching them.  There were several areas with eucalyptus trees around where they were just hanging out.  Koalas sleep for 18 to 20 hours a day; so we saw lots of snoozing ones.  I accidentally made a Facetime call to Katie (a “butt” call) and after she and the guide I was talking to got my attention that she was talking to me, I was able to walk over to an area nearby where the koalas were getting a new bunch of eucalyptus leaves and so were moving around a little.  Alfred was on the call too so he got to see them in realtime.  They are simply adorable.

And now I'm going to put more koala pictures than I should just because they make me smile.

We saw some other animals including birds that I’d seen at a couple of other places, some lizards just roaming around, and of course kangaroos.  I didn’t even go to the kangaroo enclosure.  They are cute but not as fascinating as the koalas.  As usual I avoided the reptile house.  I did go into a building that had two tanks which had platypuses in them.  There were other people there who said “oh, look, there’s one” but my friends and I didn’t see them.  That’s very frustrating.  However, one of my friends did get a couple of pictures of them and when I catch up with her she’ll airdrop them to me and I’ll add them so I can see them and so can you.

This guy was just roaming around

I think this pretty boy must be a cousin of the one who wanted his tummy scratched a few weeks ago

When we left Lone Pine we went up to a place called Mt. Coot-tha Summit Lookout. This is a mountain that’s nearly 1000 feet high and on which there are lots of hiking trails.  Evidently Brisbane holds several kinds of endurance races including both biking and running up the mountain and on the trails.  We passed a couple of bicyclists pedaling up and truthfully I thought they were as crazy as the people I saw climbing the Harbour Bridge the other day.  From the summit we had a great view of Brisbane down below.

I wish I knew how to edit the center character out but I don't

Finally, on our way back to the port we drove through the city again and stopped for a moment to take photos of St. John’s Cathedral, the Anglican one in the city.  It was impressive.  I don’t know how it’s possible but once again almost everything Toni pointed out was on the other side of the bus.  Luck I guess.  It was a nice tour but I was exhausted again from the heat more than anything else.  I hadn’t taken any water from the ship; the bottles are heavy and they leak quite often and at one point Gary, our bus driver came to my rescue.  He had some bottles of water and he gave me one.

We had dinner with Amber, the singer from the band who we sailed with last year.  Her tables are always entertaining.  The cellist performed again and gave an outstanding performance.  Then of course we were off to the club for a little while.  Then it was time to go nighty-night for a few hours not  18 or 20 like the lovely koalas.