For my birthday I elected to travel north. Not too far. We didn't leave home until 11 AM and with the darkness setting in about 3:30 you don't get too far. It was enough time, however, to take in two stops: The Alma Park Zoo and one of the beaches on Bribie Island.
The Alma Park Zoo is very close to Brisbane. It is a small zoo with Australian animals plus an odd smattering of "exotics": European deer, Ostriches (I guess so you can compare them to the Emus), lots of marmosets, a few beleaguered looking monkeys, and baboons. The animal housing isn't spacious. It certainly isn't highly naturalized. It was amusing to watch the baboons ogling the rhesus moneys though holes they had ripped in the plastic sheeting hung between their enclosures. Well, amusing to us. The monkeys seemed p.o.ed about it.
The high points:
1. Carpet pythons- reaching up to 2 meters are found commonly in Brisbane and in some suburbs are living in up to 50% of the house attics/roofs!
2. Feeding the kangaroos- They aren't actually hungry- but it lets you get up close.
3. Everybody gets to touch a koala and for $15 you can hold one AND get your picture taken. (I took the free route.)
4. Throwing food INTO the open mouth of the donkey.
5. Finding Scooby Doo's girl genius, Velma. I didn't even know she was Australian!
We went to Bribie Island by way of Deception Bay. What a name! We didn't see a lot to do there, but you know, we may have been...deceived. Anyway, Bribie Island. On the Coast of the Coral Sea. We'd talked about going up to the Sunshine Coast- but that was going to be a longer drive and it was getting late-ish: 2 PM. The beach was sparsely populated. Virtually every group was kicking a football around. Barefoot. It looked painful to us.
3 comments:
I hugged a koala once, in Adelaide. Boy are they heavy!
Interesting about the football. I've noticed Kiwis seem to be able to walk on any surface in bare feet apparently without feeling any pain. Maybe there's something about walking around upside down that makes feet less fragile?
Sounds like a really great birthday - the pic on the beach with the shadowed people (I am assuming you and Kevin) is great!!!!!
Cathi, I think you're right. As Kevin and I were making our way through the car park to the car, I elbowed him and told him to walk like an Australian! We were being very ginger about making our way across the pavement. It is like having a big neon sign over your head that says "Northern Hemisphere".
Thanks! Stewart. My shadow has many fewer wrinkles than the rest of me!
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