January 1, 2014
We had to leave our island paradise one night early, unfortunately. When I booked everything, I hadn't noticed that there is no early morning ferry to get us off the island in time for an 8:45 AM flight our of the nearby Proserpine airport. The hotel luckily was kind enough to honor our last night at their sister hotel in Airlie Beach. So we settled over back to the mainland in the afternoon of New Year's Day and then spent one night there. Airlie Beach is a cute little town full of young backpackers.
January 2
The flight to Brisbane was riddled by an early wake up call and a flight that was poorly air conditioned (we were glued to our seats from the heat) and full of screaming babies.
By the time we landed, we were in a pretty foul mood and which was slightly elevated by the crisp air conditioning on the airport train that also featured 30min of free wi-fi.....bliss.
Our hotel was located in the central business district of Brisbane, which features some really nice architecture. When the hotel learned we were on our honeymoon, they gave us a big top floor room with a balcony.
After we mapped out our transportation, we had a quick bite to eat and then headed out to the outskirts of Brisbane on a 1h bus ride to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary - my personal highlight of the trip ;-). Soooo many furry butts!
Once there, we took a few minutes to look at the first few koala exhibits (most of them are separated by gender, age etc) and then I purchased my ticket for a picture opportunity cuddling a koala.
"Finn" was a young male the handler put on me so I could get my perfect moment. He did an excellent job of holding still and "cuddling." They're surprisingly heavy by the way, so I was very fortunate that they gave me a smaller one. I saw some of the bigger ones being passed around, and I am not sure for long I could've held one of those.
The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary doesn't just feature more than 130 koalas but also a variety of other native Australian animals.
I also filmed a few little videos of some of the koalas. The second one shows their mating call - bellowing.
This one here shows a bit of a territorial dispute, or a mating attempt. We're not sure.
We were pretty tired after the long bus ride back into the city and rewarded ourselves with a nightly walk around town and dinner at a fantastic German restaurant by the water.
January 3
We used our second day in Brisbane to walk around the city and explore the river fronts. Brisbane feels very planned and deliberate. It looks like they have a pretty city planner on this and have created fantastic, beautiful and clean outdoor spaces for people to enjoy for free. From the botanical gardens in the middle of the city to the beachy pool and family area across the bridge, Brisbane seems like a great city to live in.
They have some pretty cool night time lighting going on in Brisbane.
We had to leave our island paradise one night early, unfortunately. When I booked everything, I hadn't noticed that there is no early morning ferry to get us off the island in time for an 8:45 AM flight our of the nearby Proserpine airport. The hotel luckily was kind enough to honor our last night at their sister hotel in Airlie Beach. So we settled over back to the mainland in the afternoon of New Year's Day and then spent one night there. Airlie Beach is a cute little town full of young backpackers.
The flight to Brisbane was riddled by an early wake up call and a flight that was poorly air conditioned (we were glued to our seats from the heat) and full of screaming babies.
By the time we landed, we were in a pretty foul mood and which was slightly elevated by the crisp air conditioning on the airport train that also featured 30min of free wi-fi.....bliss.
Our hotel was located in the central business district of Brisbane, which features some really nice architecture. When the hotel learned we were on our honeymoon, they gave us a big top floor room with a balcony.
Once there, we took a few minutes to look at the first few koala exhibits (most of them are separated by gender, age etc) and then I purchased my ticket for a picture opportunity cuddling a koala.
"Finn" was a young male the handler put on me so I could get my perfect moment. He did an excellent job of holding still and "cuddling." They're surprisingly heavy by the way, so I was very fortunate that they gave me a smaller one. I saw some of the bigger ones being passed around, and I am not sure for long I could've held one of those.
This one here shows a bit of a territorial dispute, or a mating attempt. We're not sure.
We were pretty tired after the long bus ride back into the city and rewarded ourselves with a nightly walk around town and dinner at a fantastic German restaurant by the water.
We used our second day in Brisbane to walk around the city and explore the river fronts. Brisbane feels very planned and deliberate. It looks like they have a pretty city planner on this and have created fantastic, beautiful and clean outdoor spaces for people to enjoy for free. From the botanical gardens in the middle of the city to the beachy pool and family area across the bridge, Brisbane seems like a great city to live in.
They have some pretty cool night time lighting going on in Brisbane.
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