I held a koala!!

And yes, there are pictures to prove it! Unfortunately, we still don't have the time to get the pictures on the web :(

The last blog left off at Byron Bay, the quaint hippie town. From Byron Bay we moved into the state of Queensland and an area called the Gold Coast. We settled down in a town called Surfer's Paradise. I had assumed that Surfer's would be similar to Byron Bay and I was completely off the mark. While Bryon Bay is a nice small town with no highrises, Surfer's is packed with hotels all along the beach. The Gold Coast area must be a popular vacation spot for the Aussies. A bit overdeveloped for my liking, but it was still a neat place to see. It reminded both Mark and I of the Torremolinos area in the south of Spain. All the hotels fighting for the best spot on the beach. One thing that Surfer's has over Torremolinos is a great beach. And you can definitely understand the name once you see the waves! There is only a very small section of the beach that lifeguards patrol because the water is so rough. It can pull you out to see in no time at all. Mark and I jumped in for some fun, albeit cautious fun. We were having a great time until my back was turned and a huge wave came. It knocked me down and in no time I had a mouth full of salt water. It was not pleasant. We decided it was time to get out of the water. We had wanted to hang out and enjoy the beach, but because it was so windy the sand just whipped against your skin. Not that pleasant either. We spent the rest of the day exploring Surfer's.

We then headed to Brisbane. And for me, we were going to Brisbane for one thing and one thing only - to hold a koala! The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, which is just 11km outside of town is great. I had found it on the internet in the months prior to doing the research for this trip. I knew we HAD to go there. The biggest attraction is the koalas, but they actually have quite a bit of other stuff to keep you entertained. We headed right to the koala cuddling section first. I couldn't stand to be there knowing that the koalas were just waiting for me! Surprisingly, there wasn't much of a line at all to hold one. Cuddling a koala is free, but they ask that if you want to take your own pictures, that you also pay them to take yours. I coughed up the $15 in no time and made sure Mark got plenty of extra pictures. They are just as cute and soft as they look. While they have some serious claws, they never really dug into you. I would have held it all day if they let me. We tried to talk to the koala keeper as much as possible so I could keep holding it, but I had to let it go eventually. We went back at the end of the day and got to hold another one. This time is was a little one. Not a baby, but a 2 year old. They still aren't full size by that age.
We spent the rest of the day feeding kangaroos and wallabies and looking at the other animals that Lone Pine has.

Of course the day that we had planned on seeing the city of Brisbane turned out to be rainy and gloomy. But we still proceeded with the plan. We bought a day pass for the transit system which allowed us to take the buses and ferries. The have a ferry system that runs through the river. Despite the weather, the ferries were a good way to see the city. Both nights we were in Brisbane we were treated to wonderful meals by my cousin from Newcastle. Thanks Steve and Casey - we had a great time! They were in Brisbane for the weekend and took time to have supper with us.

From Brisbane, we flew over to Darwin in the Northern Terroritories. I wasn't too thrilled to be visiting Darwin. First it was hot and humid - very hot and humid. Then, there are very few places you can actually swim in Darwin. They have a beautiful harbour and you can never swim there. As our bus driver from the airport warned - they pull out about 200 crocs a year from the harbour. If the crocs don't get you, the box jelly fish will. What a crazy place. I thought for sure we'd see a croc walking down the street, but I was told they never venture that far. Darwin was practically a ghost town. We arrived on a Saturday afternoon expecting things to be open and nothing was. Apparently things open in the evening again, but there was really only life on one street - the street with the majority of hostels. I guess that's not too bad considering Darwin only has about 6 main streets. We walked around the entire city and decided that we wouldn't be entertained for 5 days and that we needed to change out flight to the next day. The flight to Bali left at 10pm so we would still have another whole day to explore. We decided to do a day tour of one of the parks in the area. Parks with waterfalls and swimming holes where we assured we could swim safely. The first part of the tour invovled a jumping croc tour. They take you out on a boat on the Adelaide River - home to about 2000 crocs. Once they spot a croc, they dangle meat over the side of the boat so that the croc jumps up to get it. People can be real dumb and here's a great example. The boat isn't that big. It was pretty stable, but since there were a lot of people on the cruise, not everyone can rush over to one side of the boat. Simple logic. The captain promised that they would feed crocs on both sides. Once the croc was fed on one side he would turn the boat around and feed the croc on the other. Simple - everyone gets to see. Well, no one seemed to understand that and kept rushing to whatever side the croc was one. No matter how many times they kept telling us that the crocs view us as one big piece of meat- these people never got that we'd all be croc food if the boat flipped and sank. Stupid people. Next, we were driven out to a very nice waterfall and plunge pool. We were promised no crocs and I believed the guide. We were pretty high up at that people and as we learned on the cruise, crocs are lazy. None of them would climb up all that way. Plus, the water was crystal clear - a croc would be spotted immediately. After the 12 hour tour, we headed to the airport to say goodbye to Australia. South East Asia was only a couple of hours away!

Pictures for Brisbane and Darwin:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/nicoleella10/album?.dir=8916&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/nicoleella10/my_photos