Friday, March 2, 2012

Brisbane and the Australia Zoo

The flight from Cairns to Brisbane was uneventful. Once we got checked in we went to the train station to figure out our transportation for the next two days. We had lunch in one of several food courts around the station, and went back to the hotel for homeschooling. In the evening we walked down to Queen Street, a pedestrian mall with lots of shops and restaurants. We walked almost all the way across the river, and then back to our hotel, grabbing supper along the way. Brisbane is a surprisingly nice city. There is the wonderful downtown, good public transportation, nice people, lots of good shops and restaurants, good weather, interesting neighborhoods, and apparently quite a nice theater and concert hall. In many ways it is the best city we have visited in Australia.

Friday morning we caught the train to Beerwah, home of Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo. It was everything we hoped it would be. We got to see the crocodile show, a snake and bird show, Misa got to hold a koala, we fed the kangaroos and wallabies, visited the animal hospital, and saw lots of Australian wildlife, inside and outside of the cages. It is only a bit unfortunate that it is so far from Brisbane. It took us an hour-and-a-half to get there, and two-and-a-half hours to get back to our hotel. The trip back took so long we got all of the homeschooling done. That plus a nice conversation with a young Australian woman saved the trip home from being a complete disaster.

Tomorrow we see another top 10 Australian sight, the Gold Coast.