May 13 - This was supposed to be the wedding day, so things were a little tense/gloomy depending on the time of day and what we were doing. We went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Although you drive there, J and j thought it would be nicer if we got there by taking a cruise up the Brisbane river to get there. It was a really nice day (they all were actually, it only rained the 1 day we happened to be doing things in doors), so that was perfect. j invited one of her friends (who was to have been the other bride's maid) to come along too, and she brought her bf and his 3 kids. We took the train to Brisbane (staying in Redcliffe) and walked to the harbour from the station. The cruise was REALLY nice. There was a commentary that covered just about everything we could see from the boat including the fruit bat colonies along the river. Their fruit bats are HUGE!!! The commentary said they have a 1m. wing span!
The pic's not that helpful really, but you can kind of tell how big they are and how many were around. The cptn almost turned off the commentary 'cause he thought there weren't enough to mention. Most of the trees we passed for several minutes looked like this though. That doesn't look like "not enough bats to mention" to me!



At the sanctuary we watched a bird of prey show that was really good. It was my first look at a wedge tailed eagle. They're also HUGE. Actually, most things in Australia are just generally bigger than they are here.



Also while we were there, I got to hold a koala and feed kangaroos :) They had a bunch of kangaroos and wallabies just running free in a large field. It was 50 cents for a paper bag full of roo food which was enough to share w/ j, PI, and the kids without much difficulty.



We had a boat cruise back again and went souvineer shopping. Then we took the train back to Redcliffe and watched Dumb and Dumberer.

May 14 - As it was mother's day for us we phoned our mothers in the morning to say hi. We spent most of the rest of the day at the local Kitefest markets. I got some frangipani soap (I LOVE the smell. Found it at the botanical gardens earlier in the week) and we tasted Australian meat pies for the first time. PI really liked them.



...to be continued...