Brisbane - Sunday 12th April 2009

Well, the rain just poured today. Great, isn't it? I'm sure I've said it before, but I didn't think that I'd really have to worry about rain over here, but obviously I've learnt that I do have to!!
So, today I just tried to plan the rest of my journey up the East Coast.
I've had a bit of input from Ian - Marion's husband - which has been useful, but I was hoping for some nice sun on this part of the coast and the weather forecast is rain, rain, rain!! Not going to be much fun going to Fraser Island (biggest sand island in the world) if it's just peeing down. Not much fun going anywhere on the coast if it's just peeing down. Crap.
If the rain doesn't break, or the forecast is just going to be bad, then I think I may just go straight through to Cairns (with a stop over somewhere, not keen on being sat on a train for 24 hours though it's better than sitting on a bus for that long) and see what I can do there.
I had realised that I really didn't have time to do the scuba dive course, or the 3-day and 2-night Fraser Island trip as I haven't got that much time left in Oz! I don't really want to spend 2 days learning how to scuba dive if I'm not really going to have the opportunity to do it for a while. So, I just think that a couple of day trips to go snorkelling would be just as good, as well as being cheaper!

My original plan was to go to Hervey Bay to go to Fraser Island but I would really like to get a surf lesson in before I leave Oz. So, the places on the Sunshine Coast are my last opportunity as it goes quickly into the Geat Barrier Reef after Noosa. However, if the rain just doesn't break, then I'm not going to be able to learn. Doh!! What to do? I am in Brisbane until Thursday which is the earliest I want to leave to get the train somewhere. Nambour is the nearest stop to the Sunshine Coast and where my train also stops, and from there I should be able to get a bus to Maroochydore which is right on the coast. Sounds a bit Mediteranean, I know, but I am still in Australia I assure you! There also happens to be a nice looking YHA in Maroochydore - yay! They have a swimming pool, free breakfast (I'm wondering if it's just going to be horrid Ozzie bread and some jam though....) and surf boards to hire and so on. Sounds good!
From Nambour I can get a bus to Fraser Island, then on to Magnetic Island, and then on to Cairns - if the weather holds out.
Otherwise I think I'll just see what I can do in Cairns. Perhaps stay at a nice resort somewhere so I've got access to a swimming pool and that sort of thing? If it's wet weather, then I can just occupy myself by lapping in the pool....

Weather, weather, weather, getting fed up with thinking about the weather!!

Asked Ian and Marion about my glasses too, but as I'm so blind, the lenses will probably take about a week to arrive and I obviously am not going to be here that long. I may just end up getting a cheapo pair from the opticians, that aren't quite my prescription but as close as possible, and then just making do with those. I'm not keen on that idea, but I also don't want to do without a pair of glasses! Especially when I get on the plane - my eyes would drop out if I wore contact lenses!

Plan for tomorrow I think is to go into the city centre and have a wander around. Ian says that City Hall is going to be under renovations soon and it's a pretty nice building so I should probably go and see that before I leave. There's also Moreton Island, and Stradbroke Island that I can go to as a day trip from here, but neither of those would be fun in the rain!
Oh well, we'll see what happens tomorrow, but the forecast isn't looking great!

Monday 13th April 2009

Plan for today changed, which I'm happy about as I got to cuddle a koala today!! As it was Easter Monday, Marion was off work and Bella wanted to get out of the house, so we went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. It was a really nice place, but as we got there, the rain had already started to fall already!!
They had lots of animals - a fair few frogs and snakes, kangaroos, wallabies, Tassie Devils, and all sorts of birds, and of course - koala's!! Lots and lots of furry grey cuties!! Learnt a fair bit about koala's too, which is cool. There's a difference between Southern and Northern koala's, which means I've seen both types which is really cool. You can also tell koala's apart from the markings on their bums, and the fur in their ears. They've got 130-odd koala's at Lone Pine and they can tell them all from one another.
Had my photo taken with a nice grey fuzzy, and also got some postcards which should be winging their way to people at the moment! They weigh between 6 and 10 kilos which is actually quite heavy! They don't look particularly heavy either! Their claws are massive too and they can cling onto you quite tightly so no sudden moves otherwise you'd be going home with some bandages on your arm!
The notice by the koala cuddle enclosure says 'Feel how I grip onto you, just like I would hold onto a tree. You will be my tree so please stand as still as possible' which I thought was good advice. My friend April had said that they can poo on you, so I was prepared for that but luckily I was koala poo free! They only use each koala for about 30 minutes at day for the koala cuddling, so I guess that helps.
There was an Indian guy before me who looked quite terrified at holding the koala! He looked really apprehensive so I don't know if he was like that before, or perhaps the koala handler had said something to him? Who knows?!!

The eating area is really nice as you can see koala's there too! They have these low-walled areas around the outside and you can see all these koala's sitting in tree's around you, whilst you have your lunch. All of them snoozing away, looking very cute and huggable!!

Walking around in the rain was a bit miserable, but we saw the Tassie Devils, and also lots of macropods sheltering from the rain. They almost looked like statues as they were really still most of the time! They were pretty cute too!
There were also echidnea's there, and I think I caught a glimpse of one sheltering in a log. They'd moved them from their normal enclosure as that was being renovated, and had put them in with the Devils. Echidnea's are much more shy than everything other animal it seems, and are nocturnal too, so I knew they'd be hard to spot. However, I wanted to try and spot one before I left! I think I saw one hiding in a log, and it didn't look like a Devil in any case as it looked much more spiney (Devils coats are short and quite flat) so I think it must have been one. Of course I didn't get a particularly good photo seeing as it was pouring with rain and the enclosure was quite far away! So. I've seen all sorts of wildlife now!!

After we got completely soaked (Marion even thought rain was coming through her umbrella, as in it had gotten so saturated by the rain, that it had gone past being protective against the rain) we decided just to head back to the house. We had originally thought of going up Mount Coot-tha but we wouldn't have been able to see anything at all as the weather was so poor.
So, hot chocolate and hot cross buns it was!! :D

Managed to get hold of Esther as well, to arrange to meet up tomorrow for my birthday. She isn't getting to Brisbane until tomorrow afternoon sometime, so I said she could send me a text if she was in the city and wanted to meet up beforehand.
Marion said that it would be cool to have a cocktail in this bar first, that's apparently won a lot of awards for cocktail making and so on. Their website made it look pretty swish, so I thought one cocktail there would be quite nice.
Then we could just go find somwhere to have dinner and have something to eat. Sounds like a plan, Stan!!