Australia day #4 - South Bank Parklands

We are having so much fun! How could we top Lone Pine? Well, maybe we can't top it, but we sure had a great day at the South Bank Parklands. It's right downtown on the river and we got to ride the train to get there, not because it's far away but because it's hard to park. There are so many great things to do. There's a big ferris wheel, which we didn't go on (much to the chagrin of Pierce, Mattie, and Zoe). There were a few museums that looked great. We went in the Gallery of Modern Art. We looked through the exhibits and there was some cool stuff. I liked some of the aboriginal art. I should have taken some close-ups of these sculptures because they used some cool household implements.



Such a great view of the river, this was the 2nd story looking down (or 3rd story?).


Zoe had so much fun with Sydney and Oaklee! I loved seeing the girls together.


Annnnnnndddddd there was some art that I didn't love as much. I did like this series of pictures, they were giant, took up the whole wall, but don't look over to the right, because there is a disturbing movie of nude guys running around, yikes. We moved on quickly.


There was a music section with like 20 metronomes in a row, all clicking away. One thing I liked was a set of tape recorders (cool, I remember those) next to a set of virtual tape recorders with lots of different Mozart recordings. You could put on headphones and listen to as many of them at the same time as you wanted - more wasn't necessarily better but it was interesting. Then there was this giant guitar statue - since Zoe is a budding guitar player we thought she might like to pose with this. (But - do not touch.)


And Sydney, and blurry Pierce.


Downstairs was a great children's section. They were doing a project with spinning collages they had made.


Zoe thought the art museum would need to keep her art (because that's what I told her because I didn't want to carry it around all day). So here is a picture of her art. Also - she loves to cut hearts out of colored paper. And, as it turned out, she got to keep the art after all, and we even brought it all the way home with us, the museum said it was okay.


The cool kaleidoscope blocks were fun for Pierce and Parker, who didn't too much want to create the art.




The children's room kind of made my eyes hurt, but it was fun.




Next stop - some great lunch. Mattie and I had kabobs, which were delicious. Matt had fish & chips and Pierce had a burger, Zoe mac & cheese (of course, doesn't matter where we are, she always orders it and then doesn't want to eat it). Then there were a series of pools along the river. The first one was a normal pool and the second one was a beach! How cool is that, a man-made beach with nice clean pool water. Right behind us, and across the river, is downtown buildings. But here is the beach!


The girls had such a nice time making Zoe into a sand mermaid.


Since it was bright and sandy out, she wore goggles while the girls created the sculpture around her.




I half thought she had fallen asleep, she was holding so still for so long. I bet she was in the sand for half an hour.


A beautiful and artistic mermaid emerged!








It was a shame to break her mermaid, but....


the next mermaid was Parker. I don't know if he knew it would be another mermaid, but he was also very patient.




The water drops created the scales on the sand tail.


Look at their delight in the mermaidian fun.




Pierce was in charge of the hands, and he wasn't as detail oriented as Mattie.


What a good sport!


After the beach park there was a really nice spray park too. Matt and I walked around park area - it's a really nice riverwalk with parks, restaurants, a marina museum, and some great big bridges across the river, even a pedestrian-specific bridge. It goes really far too, we didn't see everything. It reminded me of how cool the riverwalk was in San Antonio, only the Brisbane River is much larger than the river through San Antonio and the whole scale was just bigger.

Then we rode a train to Chinatown for some Thai food. First we stopped at a store where we saw this very surprising picture in the store window:


Hmmmm.

The plaza we went to was really nice and the Thai food was great. I remember I took a picture of the menu to remember something, but I've kind of forgotten what it was. Maybe it was the fat rice noodles - Zoe loved them.


See how happy she is? She shared my dinner and kind of took it over.


One funny thing is that they don't worry about ice, the drinking water can be warm. We were happy to have water we could get ourselves, we were all thirsty by then.


So fun to spend time with our friends! We loved doing and seeing so many interesting things today! Thank you!

Australia day #3 - Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

This has to be one of our favorite days ever! It was supposed to be a little rainy, and we decided that Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary would be a good option if it did end up being a little wet. (It didn't, just a few drops.) This is a small zoo in Brisbane, but it is not just a zoo. It is a zoo where you can hand-feed kangaroos, and hold koalas!

First of all, they have so many koalas. We have always loved the koala in our Albuquerque zoo (there used to be 2, now just one). We didn't count all the koalas, but there were a ton of them, all in these nice little enclosures where you could practically reach in and pet them (no fence). I'm sure nobody has reached in and pet them, right? But I'm just saying it seems possible. When we got there the keepers were cleaning one cage and the koalas were running around on the ground. I'm not sure I've ever really seen a koala move before, it was cool.



Not the best koala picture to come. There may be a *few* more coming later.


Good claws for climbing.


Okay, on to the kangaroo enclosure! First thing we did was pet a couple of emus. They don't let you pet emus at our zoo in Albuquerque. I remember at the Safari drive in New Jersey, the ostriches would peck your car and the zoo warned you with big signs to never open your windows when they were around "CAUTION, birds WILL PECK!" But the emus didn't peck. Their feathers look messy but they were kind of soft.






Obviously this little guy is not a good reader.


Most of us made a bee-line to the back of the park area where there was a small herd of kangaroos just waiting to be fed. Now I will post a lot of kangaroo-feeding pictures, maybe even too many (?).








This little guy is a wallaby, not a kangaroo. But they look very similar.




The kangaroos were very friendly and didn't mind being petted. Even if we didn't have food in our hands.


Matt thought it was funny to let them eat out of the sack.




As you can see, some of them were quite a good size. One guy looked especially big and muscley, probably not this one, but you can see if he stood all the way up he'd be taller than Sydney.














I love watching them hop. It's so effortless - they go so far and it looks so graceful. A human could never do that. I never really got a good picture of this, because mostly they were hanging about being fed, or lying down in their "leave us alone" section.




This was the one guy that Zoe couldn't get to eat from her hand. I don't know why she spent so much time on it, because there were 35 other kangaroos that were happy to. He was a challenge though!


And here you can see both Oaklee and a little joey in the wallaby's pouch! There was another kangaroo with a joey, but I didn't get a picture of that. I think Parker got a bunch of them, so maybe he should email Pierce a few.


Finally we reluctantly left the kangaroo area, it's just a nice grassy park-like area, and stopped by to see a wombat on our way out.




Also a water basilisk (I think that's what they're called!)


Hello, one more wombat picture. Such interesting marsupials in Australia.


Next we stopped by the Tasmanian devil enclosures. They were curled up sleeping and this was the best picture I could get of the actual Tasmanian devil. We have I think 4 of them at our zoo, newly arrived, but sadly for us they are nocturnal, so we can't actually see them during the day. So we had really been wanting to see one.


We figured this might be as close as we got. Not too bad, right?

(oh, did you notice that it's a picture of a sign?)

Here's a well-behaved dingo. Really. The sign on the cage says that these 3 dingos have passed basic dog obedience training. And also, they look exactly like dogs (to me).


A kookaburra - one of the things I realllllly wanted to do in Australia is hear a kookaburra do its call. This guy did not cooperate, but don't worry, we heard lots of them later when we were camping.


This is a platypus. It might be a little hard to tell. Platypuses are nocturnal, so their tank was lit for night (i.e. not very much) and they are kept in a dark room. This makes non-flash photography basically impossible, but we tried it anyway. We listed to a keeper talk about the platypuses and were very interested to learn about the males' venomous spurs on their feet.


Here are a few of the very many more koala enclosures.




This is more like what we're used to seeing! (Except, only one.)


But how cute is this guy? I think he wanted to play.


This water basilisk was not in a cage, just hanging around in the mulch. I think Zoe managed to touch one.


Okay, this is why I thought that other koala wanted to play. Because, for only $15, you can hold a koala! How could we not do it??? They had a little trouble getting one to hold onto Zoe, so she actually got to touch two of them.


In the meantime, here is Mattie, holding a fine-looking koala. I think he likes her!


Let's try this again. She was so excited.


Success! Their claws are long and a little sharp, but it's worth it!






I did hold a koala too, but the picture they got of me is not one I want to post. But picture me just after Matt, holding a koala of my own.




Next was a keeper talk about the Tasmanian devils. They fed them, so the animals got up and ran around their enclosures. So cool! They don't look very scary at all, kind of cute instead.


This one didn't hop right up to eat, but she got fed later.


And this one ran around for quite awhile before also going back in the hole. They have funny white spots, kind of cute faces, and kind of ugly tails. They are called Tasmanian devils because they make scary sounds when they feast, and they feast in groups. Also when they get excited their eyes shine red. Good reasons, right? But they didn't seem very fierce to me.


One of the kids was happily eating a snack (zoos make the kids ravenous in Australia just like they do here), until we looked up and saw this gigantic spider directly overhead. No thanks!


For whatever reason I didn't take any pictures of the nice raptor bird show we saw (maybe because I was surreptitiously eating a peanut butter sandwich) or the great sheep herding and shearing show we watched. I loved the sea eagle - so huge and I'd never seen anything like that before. The sheep dogs were also amazing, and the guy sheared a merino sheep in just a couple of minutes, cool. (Instead, here is a picture of another koala.)


In the reptile house we saw some poisonous snakes. This one is one of the most poisonous in the world. Australia has lots of venomous creatures.






They have frogs that spit acid also. Not this guy, but that's what the boys were thinking of when they were looking at this nice frog.


Also - flying foxes. These are VERY LARGE bats. Adults have a wingspan of up to one meter. They flap around the city at night, it was so cool - at first Pierce wouldn't believe that they weren't crows (which are also gigantic). But the bat wing is very distinctive.


Had to sit on the koala statue on the way out. I was sad to leave this lovely zoo. I think these are the memories that the kids talk about the most now that we're home. (And camping, later on.)






After Lone Pine, we went to a really nice park on the way home and let the kids play. There were lots of things that we loved about Brisbane - my favorite is probably the big river that runs through it. And 2nd is all the parks! We saw them everywhere, and they were very well maintained, with fun toys, drinking fountains, bathrooms, and gas grills. This park was on the river. We learned that people don't really swim in the river because sometimes BULL SHARKS do.
http://www.qt.com.au/news/monsters-of-the-deep-multiply-in-murky-river/2150237/
I spent the rest of the time really keeping an eye out for bull sharks, but I never saw them.
This is what I wanted to see:
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/leaping-sharks-are-no-bull-20100906-14wyq.html
but no luck. (Wrong season?)
There are rowing clubs on the river and I did love seeing those boats. It looks so peaceful.

Next we ate dinner - the best fish & chips the Allens have found are at Chompers. Chompers seems like a regular fast-food strip mall restaurant, but their fish & chips are really extra delicious. (We should have gone back again, but there were so many good things to eat!) One intriguing option at Chompers was to "donify" any burger by substituting a krispy kreme donut for the buns, only $4. (We stuck to the fish & chips.) We also discovered chicken salt - when you order your fries you can choose regular salt or chicken salt. Jessi says that chicken is so expensive that it makes sense to include chicken flavor wherever you can. We bought some souvenir chicken salt - what should we use it on first? Also, dairy is extra good in Australia - they have some strict dairy regulations and whatever they are, the result is delicious milk, yogurt, and even the soft-serve ice cream at McDonald's is extra good. Also it's 30 cents for a child-size cone, so we did that a few times. I don't dare get those here in Albuquerque because it would be quite a disappointment I know. Anyway, it was a totally amazing and wonderful day!