August 14
Today was a day to shop and unwind at Airlie Beach. As we mentioned before, Airlie Beach is a lovely waterfront town with a man-made lagoon on the waterfront. Basically, it was a free public pool in the middle of the town. I don’t think you would see that in the USA. I was the only one brave enough to take a swim. It was a bit chilly. We all thought of the catamaran often and really missed being on it. That was definitely the highlight of our trip. In Airlie, we pretty much just stayed along the waterfront and ate lunch out. On the way back to our place, we stopped at Woolworth’s (a grocery chain in Australia as opposed to a department store) and picked up a few things. The other big grocery chain is Coles. So when we first arrived and people told us to go to Woolworth’s and Coles, we were a bit confused. We bought some meat pies for dinner, which are pretty popular around here. These were pre-made and just needed to be put in the oven. They were quite good; I’d compare them to a pot pie without any vegetables — it is simply a meat pie (we had both beef and chicken pies). After we ate, we watched some Olympics and got our suitcases packed for our return home. 🙁
Last family photo at Airlie Beach. It was low tide
and getting dark, so the photo doesn’t due justice to beauty.
August 15
We left Airlie Beach and headed back to Townsville where we caught a flight to Brisbane (we flew home from Brisbane the next day). One the way to Townsville, we stopped at the Billabong Sanctuary, a wildlife park. During our travels we had expected to see lots of kangaroos, but they are generally not in cities and usually come out at dusk and dawn, so we did not see any (we saw wallabies, but not the big kangaroos, although we did see some road kill ‘roos). We also wanted to see koalas in the wild, but they are quite rare and we didn’t see any. So, since we had not been able to see some of the wildlife we expected, we cheated and went to the sanctuary. We knew the park had kangaroos and koalas so we had to stop. Inside the park, kangaroos roamed freely and we were able to pet and feed them (they ate seeds from our hands). The sanctuary also had plenty of koalas and we were able to see and touch the cute bears there. In addition, though we tried to see a cassowary in the wild when we went to Daintree National Park, it wasn’t until we went to the sanctuary before we saw some. They are magnificent birds (five foot tall – sort of like a colorful emu) and we even got to feed them. Cassowaries are an endangered bird, with only a few thousand left in population. They are also the largest land animal (by weight) in Australia, with some members getting up to 85 kilograms. The park also had dingos (Australia’s native canine), large saltwater crocs, and a variety of birds (including black cockatoos). After the park, we made it to the airport for a flight to Brisbane, Australia’s third largest city (about 2 million people).
We took a cab to our hotel, the Meriton, in downtown Brisbane. The 74 story hotel is the tallest building in Brisbane, and our room was on the 71st floor facing the waterfront! Not only were the views spectacular, but room was a two bedroom suite and it was fabulous (five star all the way). The kids discovered that the windows actually opened (yes, we could open our windows on the 71st floor) and pulled a little prank on John, who does not enjoy large heights. After we checked in, we walked along the waterfront and had a nice dinner outside at the Riverwalk restaurant. It was a bit cool (being winter and further south than we had been), but there were heaters near the tables to keep things comfortable. We enjoyed our last night “down under,” and while we didn’t want the trip to end, we were also missing home (and our dogs who were staying with their cousin dog, Dash).
Pictures from the Wildlife Sanctuary…
Feeding the kangaroos (these are not the big red kangaroos). They were very friendly,
especially the one holding Megan’s hand to eat. He would reach up and grab your
hand to get to the food. Obviously, they are used to people.
The koalas were so cute. See the mom and her baby. The one the kids are touching
is a blind koala named Ray Charles. The cassowaries are beautiful large birds. You can
see the size in the photo with me feeding one.
The view of the city of Brisbane from our room window.
Last family photo and selfie on our last night in Brisbane.
