Brisbane

The absolute best thing about “Brissy” was that it was never as hot as it was the first day I arrived. Fine, fine fine. If you pulled my leg, I'm sure I could maybe come up with some other high points. Brisbane is a river city made up of a large Central Business District and many smaller surrounding villages on a landscape of rolling hills and beauty. It boasts a cool bridge and an efficient public transit fleet that I rode everyday (buses, water buses, trains) in some form or another.

Story Bridge

To be honest though, my favorite activities while in town weren't technically in Brisbane.

The first big outing was to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary where I successfully saw...koalas! While the park was really well laid out and had lots of interesting and cute critters, I started feeling uncomfortable about halfway through my visit. At some point in the last few years I've developed a much larger appreciation for natural life, and I think seeing all these beautiful creatures in cages on display just rubbed me up the wrong way. I just sort of of sat there thinking, “I'd rather spend a whole day hiking around looking for stuff and seeing ONE wild creature than seeing loads in a cage.”

Mommy and baby  joey koala!  

Which is exactly what I did next! The next day I headed off at a very early hour to Moreton Island with a local guide company Bushwacker Eco Tours. We “enjoyed” sandboarding. By which I mean my tour mates enjoyed watching me ride down a gigantic sand dune on a slab of waxed wood and face plant quite a few times. There was honestly so much sand in my clothes afterward that I walked straight into the shower with all my clothes when I got home at the end of the day.

Those dunes are tricking you, they were massive.  It was like a giant sand-bowl and here I'm at the top.

Before that, however, we went snorkeling at the Tangalooma Wrecks where we spotted loads of fish, a friendly Woobegong shark, and the endangered hornbill turtle. Fun Fact: fish will swarm around you and eat will eat tortilla wraps out of your hands. Also a fun fact: Birds will see this and gobble up whole fish right in front of your eyes. Teamwork.

The Tangalooma Wrecks.  Purposely shrunk whaling ships that now host corals from the Barrier Reef.

I was quite tired the next day from Moreton shenanigans, so strolling around Brisbane's Southbank was exactly my speed. A nice little Saturday market, fresh sushi, and some fro-yo on the riverside set me up quite nicely to enjoy my favorite cultural activity: going to the cinema! And I must say, while Chris Pine isn't my favorite Jack Ryan, the movie was pretty good. I mean, you can do a lot worse than Kevin Costner in dress blues. Once you love someone in Waterworld, you never go back.

My last day in Brisbane was spent with the same eco tour company, but this time we traveled south of Brisbane into the Hinterland to see some sub-tropical rainforest. I absolutely adored this tour. Our morning started off at Natural Arch with some rainforest bushwalking, little ecology lessons, a waterfall through a cave, water dragon, eel, and strangler figs.

The Strangler Fig: An epiphyte who grows on top of other trees for centuries, but eventually strangles its host to death.  Lovely. 

Natural Arch

We also made a stop to see glow worms which usually only live in caves. A local created a man-made cave where the worms could live in darkness full time (and visitors could see them during the day). No photos were allowed, but the site of them in the pitch blackness was exactly like like looking at the stars in a clear night sky...if stars trapped mosquitos for breakfast!

[Note: My camera died somewhere during the day, so while there aren't many good photos currently of the following, some tour mates took some and I'll update this post when they email them to me!]

After a lovely lunch where we discussed my other favorite aspect of culture, language differences, we went on a nice long hike through Springbrook National Park. The hike wasn't so long, but we all were in need of a little break for rest and photos when we reached Twin Falls. Now when presented with the following waterfall, I ask who among you would not immediately take off all your clothes and go for a swim? Bit cold, but completely clean, no unfriendly water creatures or mushy plants – and nothing is ever going to erase the image I had floating on my back looking up at this waterfall at the Australian sky.

Twin Falls from my crappy mobile camera...more pics to be uploaded later!

Once I decided clothes were in order again, we scaled the cliff and checked out the source of the waterfall, a spring so pure you could drink from which was delicious! Filled my water bottle twice. We had another little detour when we spotted a huge human hand-sized blue crayfish, to which I immediately turned to the guide asking, “You gonna catch that for me?”. Long story short, good thing I chose to go for a swim already, cause I fell in the creek in our pursuit, but we eventually caught the little bugger (ie – I told CJ where it was, and he risked his digits catching it). Fearsome little beast, could chop off a finger with those claws! Endless thanks go to CJ for indulging the waterbaby of the tour.

Brisbane was a great city, and an even better city to use as a base to explore the areas around it. I have a feeling I'll make it back there soon. With Brissy done I'll be in Emerald for a few days where I'll meet the family I'll be working with and doing a little two-day induction with the girls distance education school.

Internet has been shaky the last few days, but once we get to the reserve properly (end of the week) things will definitely be more stable. Leave some comments would love to hear from you guys!