Brisbane & Australia Zoo

Sunday, October 21, 2012

For some reason, cruise ship cabins do not have clocks in them.  If you want to set an alarm, you do so through the cabin telephone, which will ring to wake you.  We always bring along a digital clock and plug it in near the television, which is elevated, so we can each see the time when we wake up at night.  Last Thursday when we plugged our clock in, something happened and the clock no longer works.  It might have something to do with the conversion from 220 volts to 110 volts.  On Saturday, we knew we needed to get up early to go on our all day excursion from Brisbane to the Australian Zoo and Gold Coast.  We also had a time zone change Friday night, so Co started waking up at 4am, way too early.  Then it was to the bathroom, where the light was on, then find her eyeglasses so she could see her watch.  By that time she was pretty much awake, so had no chance to fall back asleep.

Our excursion in Brisbane was to the Australian Zoo, Steve Irwin of Crocodile Hunter fame’s place, and it was HOT, probably in the high 80’s.  The zoo had lots of Australian critters as well as many from Africa and Asia.  Camel, elephants, giraffes and such.  We didn’t know how many snakes; poisonous and non-poisonous were native to Australia.    Did you know that koalas sleep 18-20 hours per day?  They only eat toxic eucalyptus leaves and so do not get much in the way of nutrients. 

At noon, the Zoo put on what they called a Wildlife Warriors Show.  It started with trained birds of all colors flying in and around the stadium and out on command.  An Australian condor, the largest bird in the world came in on cue and ate set out food from plastic set of ribs.  Then they had a trained bird (falcon?) came in and landed on the emcees arm.  He selected a woman from the audience and had her fold a $5 note and hold it in her right hand.  The bird retrieved it and took it to the emcee.  Then he had the woman hold out her left arm and the bird returned the $5 note.  Pretty amazing training.

A salt water crocodile named Mossman was the featured animal.  There was a shallow pool he was in and the emcees and another demonstrated how the croc could swim underwater toward sound without making any waves in the water.

After the show we reboarded our bus and went into the mountains to a tourist trap town named Montville.  Easy to picture; lots of overpriced cafes and vastly overpriced trinket shops.  Of course, we looked in all of the trinket shops but did not make any purchases.

One of our table mates is a wine maker; his family has been making wine since 1887.  We tried some of his Chardonnay under the family name, McWilliams.  It is sold in the US, but under different labels.  Good stuff! 

Now we have two days at sea before we get to Port Douglas, at the edge of the Great Barrier Reef.  We are looking forward to it.  The farther up the north coast we go the higher the temps seem to be.  We did bring clothing for differing temps, but have not needed warmth yet.