Koalas and kangaroos

What would Australia be without a kangaroo?

December 22nd - Three days ago we got up early and took a shuttle to the Auckland airport for our flight to Brisbane, Australia. Just before security, they weighed our carry-on luggage and we had over 10 lbs too much. After moving items between our backpacks & bag to one another and re-weighing a few times, the lady just gave up and said we could go on thru. Fortunately, this was our only problem and we had a great 3.5 hour flight (over 2,200 miles) into Brisbane. Brisbane is a large city in the state of Queensland on the eastern coast of Australia. Our first impression was the very HOT weather. At over 90F degrees it felt just like being in Houston in August with high humidity. Fortunately, our rental car has good air-conditioning – plus it is automatic which is a welcome change from our campervan in New Zealand.

Our plans here in Australia are to go down along the coast from north of Brisbane thru Sydney and see lighthouses along the way. So we headed north thru Brisbane about 100 kilometers (60 miles) to Mooloolaba. The coastal area north of Brisbane is called the’ Sunshine Coast’ and has beautiful beaches. Since it is summer here, school is out, and it is holiday time – all of the small cities along the coast are packed with people. And guess where the lighthouses are – of course along the coast. This made driving not as much fun as it could have been in the winter. We did manage to see all of the lighthouses we wanted to see and then headed into Brisbane.

With the help of our navigation system, we made into the very heart of the city to the Maritime Museum to see a lighthouse and a lightship. We drove by to see the parliament building but it was surrounded with scaffolding and so drove on. It was then out to the ‘Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary’ to see Australian wildlife and we were not disappointed. We saw kangaroos (which we petted), wombats, dingos, and of course koalas. We enjoyed the koala and birds of prey shows and the feeding of the lorikeets. The highlight was being able to hold and cuddle a koala and have our picture taken. Note: koalas are not bears but are marsupials (related to kangaroos).

After saying goodbye to the koalas, we headed out to the coast south of Brisbane. We were so happy just to be out of Brisbane – driving there was a challenge with streets that are winding, hilly, and with multiple lane markings that were confusing. After making what seemed like countless number of turns, we managed to exit the city. If the navigation system had not been programmed correctly, we might still be in the city going around in circles.

The coastal area south of Brisbane is called the ‘Gold Coast’ and here again the coastal towns are filled with people, but we managed to see all of the lighthouses that we wanted to so far. Hopefully, we get to drive some of those small country roads soon after we leave the resort areas. A good bit of Australia is in a drought and this area is no exception. The trees and plants are green, but there are signs everywhere telling us to save water

Cathy cuddling koala named Mark

Jan cuddling koala named Yabba

A beautiful lorikeet. One of the activities at the koala sanctuary was feeding the lorikeets. If was fascinating watching over a hundred of these birds flying around vying for the food.

A mother bird protecting her young. If you look closely, you can see the tails of her 2 young chicks under her front feathers.