Once again I wake up around 5 am, and try get back to sleep, with very little luck. Nate’s alarm goes off at 6 am, and we get up and ready to go down to breakfast. Today both kids get a ham and cheese omelet, but they still want a small bowl of cereal and so on.
Today they have pancakes available with cooked bananas as an optional topping, it reminds me of breakfast in Hawaii, and is very tasty. Nate decides to give the Vegemite another try. When we did it yesterday he just put it straight on the toast, and probably put too much. I had read you should put lots of butter, and then a slight skiff of the Vegemite. Nate and I both try it the suggested way, and it is way better, however I still prefer jam with my butter any day.
After breakfast and getting ready with sweatshirts and hats etc. we head out to walk to the pontoon at the Cultural Center. We will be heading on a river cruise down the Brisbane River to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. It takes us around 15 mins to walk down to the dock from our hotel, and they are boarding the boat as we arrive. By the time we get on the boat all the seats on the outside by the railing on the upper deck are already taken, however there are some middle aisle seats available. I think they are actually better seats because we are able to see things on both sides of the river and we are protected some from the wind by the captain control room.
The river cruise takes about 1.25 hours, and while traveling down the river towards the sanctuary they play a pre-recorded commentary of what we are seeing along the river. They give the names of bridges and some of the history of historic buildings, homes, and neighborhoods along the journey.
Gas tracking tower from tuning oil into gas
Oldest pub in Brisbane is at the Regatta hotel. It was opened in 1874. During a large flood in 1974 the water was to the second floor.
Orleigh park was once the site of aboriginal homes. In 1893 the Brisbane River flooded and swept them away.
They have river taxis called the City Cat. There are 20 terminals along the river, and 10 bridges that cross the Brisbane River in the CBD (Central Business District). This City Cat was decorated with the popular cartoon Bluey, so it was called City Dog.
This 1888 mansion has hosted some famous guests, including Vivien Leigh of "Gone with the Wind" and her husband Laurence Olivier
A lot of homes were damaged and most of the docks destroyed in a flood in 2022, that is why most of the dock pilings look almost new, because they are
Upon arriving at the sanctuary we are actually disembarking off the top deck, and so we end up being the first off people off the boat and into the sanctuary. We are informed as we walk in that there is a birds of prey show starting in about 15 minutes. I am a little torn as we have an appointment in 30 minutes to have a koala experience, and I'm thinking it might be better to try feed the kangaroos first as it might be less busy, and animals are often more active earlier in the day. But the kids want to go watch the birds of prey show, so we head that way instead.
Along the path we see people holding up some little trays on a pole and there are birds that are flying down and landing on them and eating. Landon and Kailey both get a turn and at first none of the birds seem interested in coming down to eat. However after a while one flies down and lands on Nate’s hat.
Soon Landon has a couple birds eating out of the tray he is holding, and then Kailey also has one land on her head. She does a really good job not freaking out.
We then head to the birds of prey show. They have the birds fly right over your heads really low as they fly between two trainers, or a trainer and a perch. They have a Barking owl, Barn owl, and Black kite.
Barking Owl
Barn Owl
After the show is done we rush over the the Koala encounter area as it is about our time. After reading reviews where people missed out, I had scheduled the encounter in advance so we could be guaranteed a visit. To protect the Koalas they only have them do the encounters for no more than 90 minutes in a day, 120 minutes in a week, and never two days in a row to try keep them from getting stressed out. Koalas also sleep for 18-22 hours in a day. Their diet of eucalyptus leaves has very low nutrients and they are also very hard to digest, so the koalas sleep to conserve energy and use most of their energy simply digesting their food.
Meet Orlando!
You don't get to hold the koalas here, however you can pet it and take pictures with it. Our Koala’s name is Orlando. He was mainly just chowing down on eucalyptus leaves the whole time, and the handler gave us some information as we were petting him.
On their feet they have two toes fused together that act like a comb so they can brush their fur. They also have some hard cartilage at the base of their spine that acts like a built-in seat and makes it comfortable for them to sit in the tree without getting sore. They also have two thumbs on each hand and three fingers that help them grab onto things and grip as they climb and sleep. The males have a scent gland on their front chest that is brown looking, and when they are mating they get really stinky, which is how the females like it I guess.
Koalas are marsupials, not bears as many people call them. They give birth to a little baby the size of a jelly bean that is hairless, and its eyes and ears aren't fully developed yet. It will crawl up into its mother's pouch and attach to one of two nipples inside the pouch to finish developing over the next 5-6 months. It will then start spending some time outside of the pouch attached to its mom until one or two years old, depending on when the mom has another baby and kicks it out of the pouch.
It's a little hard to tell, but this picture is a momma Koala with two babies on her back, they are probably a year apart.
After our visit with Orlando we purchase some “roo food” and head into the area where you can feed kangaroos and wallaby’s. When we walk in the only thing we see is one little wallaby hiding behind some bushes. We slowly head towards it but it seems like it was really nervous. Even though we offer it food, it jumps away when we get within about 10 feet. This is our experience with all of the wallabies. I’m not sure if they are normally like this or if it is because of very young kids here on field trips. Little kids often approach too quickly and aggressively and could put them on edge.
We do eventually spot some kangaroos lazing in some holes with people around them. Most of them don’t seem too interested in eating, and at this point we are thinking we really didn’t need the two small bags of food, as we haven’t had any luck feeding anything so far.
Walking further along we finally find a roo that Landon is able to feed a little, and eventually we all had a turn. Kailey isn't a fan of having a kangaroo lick food out of her hand, so after doing it once or twice, she didn’t feel the need to do more.
We eventually decide it is time to move on and see other things, so we drop the rest of our food in a roo food recycle bin and went to wash our hands.
They have a nice little variety of animals here: a crocodile, dingos, a variety of birds, and koalas all over.
Water Monitor
Dingos
Crocodile
They have one room with a tank that has a duckbill platypus. Honestly I thought they would be bigger, I guess I was imagining more similar to the size of a beaver, but they are quite a bit smaller. Their average size is about 15-24" long and weighing only up to 6.6 lbs. (A beaver can be 29-40" long and 35-70 lbs.). The platypus was being quite silly and swimming in circles. I couldn’t really get a picture as you weren’t supposed to use a flash and it was dark in the room because they are mainly nocturnal.
The duck-billed platypus is one of the most unusual animals. It's one of the very few egg laying mammals. They don't have nipples, instead the mother "sweats" milk out of glands, then the baby puggles lap it up with a tongue. The baby puggles are born with teeth, but they soon fall out and they develop grinding pads in the bill to grind their food up with the help of rocks that they get out of the river. The males also have venomous spurs on their hind legs. Even though these amazing creatures live in and around water, they close their eyes, ears, and nostrils when they are in the water, and use electroreceptors in their duck-bill to sense their prey, which consists of larvae, freshwater shrimp, worms, and bugs.
We go over to an area that houses other nocturnal animals, but not surprisingly they are all hiding, or probably sleeping. Our time is just about done, so we stopped by the gift shop before heading for the boat.
This time all the upper deck seats are taken, so we had to sit downstairs below deck inside. On the boat ride back they don’t play the commentary, just music. They do have food for purchase, but we plan on getting food once we are back in town. Nate buys the kids a gummy snake, which is just an oversized gummy worm. Kailey and I go stand out in the front of the boat for part of the ride, and we enjoy the breeze as its pretty warm and muggy out.
We head for the hotel once we get back to drop off our sweatshirts and get some water and change into shorts. We then go out to grab some food and we pull out a little cash from an ATM. We figure we could use the money to buy some things, and any left over coins could be a souvenir for the kids. The bill we get out is really cool looking, and has a clear section, different from any other kids of bill I've seen in my travels.
On our walk around town yesterday Nate had seen a food place that he had eaten at in Taiwan called Hotstar Chicken. We grab some food there and sat on a bench to eat it. It was pretty good, but not the easiest to eat as it's a fried chicken breast pounded flat but with the bones still in it. Nate wasn’t feeling good at this point, I think just from being exhausted from the hot humid day, and not eating for such a long time. We didn't eat lunch till closer to 3:30 PM after eating breakfast at 6:30 am. So we headed back to the hotel to cool down and relax.
It’s hard to believe, but it's already time to pack up our bags and get ready to say goodbye to Brisbane, as tomorrow very early we fly to Cairns.
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