April 19, 2018

Today we were in Brisbane. This is a huge city with so much to see. To do it justice you need more than a day just to scratch the surface.

We started out with room service at 6:00 am. We had to go through immigration and wanted to be among the first off tge ship. We were told to go to Legends at 7:00 and we would be let off between 7:00 and 7:45. We got there at 7:00 and the room was already full. However they had just started handing out numbers and I was able to get us 65-68 so I thought that was pretty good. They didn’t start letting us off the ship until 8:00 and it was 8:20 or so until we got to our guide who had been waiting on us since 7:00.

The first stop for our tour was Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. We got there before they opened so we were the first ones in once the gate opened. Our guide, Val, walked through the park and showed us all the animals explaining as we went along. We had the opportunity to have our picture with a koala but didn’t do it since we had already done that. We got to feed kangaroos. We had not been able to see them up close before this so that was fun. There was also a platypus who was too fast to get a picture of. He was smaller than I thought he would be. We also got to see a Tasmanian devil and a Dingo. The dingo reminded me of sky.

Next stop was the botanical gardens where we did a quick drive through and stopped at a picnic pavilion for a morning snack. Our guide made us coffee and had some homemade Anzac cookies for us. It was all very good. He even put a tablecloth on the table for us.

We drove through an area I think he called Hamilton and saw all the really nice houses. Some were very old and one was on acreage and had deer on it to keep the lawn mowed.

The rest of the tour was mostly driving seeing petty scenery and beaches. We went to Moreton Bay and Redcliffe. We also saw where The Bee Gees went to school.

By this time we were starving and I asked if we could stop for a quick bite to eat. I told him we would even do McDonalds. He took us to a local seafood market where you could pick your fish and have them cook it. Since it was almost 3:00 I just got a fish and chips snack pack. It was fresh and very good and only cost $5.50 Australian Dollars. When ordering the girl working there had lots of questions and I am not sure what kind of English she was speaking but I didn’t understand half of what she was saying. It was very comical.

After this stop we drove back to the ship. It appeared that most people were back on board when we got back at 4:00. All aboard time was 4:30 and we left around 5:00. We picked up some new passengers in Brisbane. I think after they drop us off in Sydney on Saturday they are going back to the Great Barrier Reef. In about a month or so this ship starts her World Cruise.