I will cover both the day before arrival and the days after departure from the City of Brisbane (which we enjoyed greatly on March 13, 2016) leading to my next post on the 16th at Yorkeys Knob, Australia.
Saturday March 12, 2016 – (time 1 hour back) – At Sea between Sydney and Brisbane Australia. After two exciting days in Sydney we were glad to have a day at sea before getting to the Brisbanre experience. As usual though it was filled with activities. The 10 AM talk was given by the port lecturer Graham Howell, this time on Yorkey’s Knob, which is the port for Cairns, Australia. The 11 AM was Peter FitzSimons who was an Australian Rugby star and now has written 27 books about different individuals, mainly Australians. He is a great storyteller and rattled on non-stop chatting about Austrailans we had not heard of, but it was fun. However, he did go off rather vociferously about Australia breaking it’s ties with England and becoming a republic, which was rather surprising. He obviously is passionate about the subject and has a platform as a FOX news commentator and married to the Today Show host. For some unknown reason the 12:15 talk by Alistair Heron was postponed to the afternoon as the speaker did not show up. Alistair is the Barrier Reef pilot who is responsible for the safe navigation for the full length of the Great Barrier Reef. He gave his second talk on flora and fauna of the Reef, including coral formation, destruction and current status. We opted on skipping the evening performance by Alana Conway -Australia’s new leading lady of song.
Sunday March 13, 2016 – In Brisbane, Australia – Brisbane is Australia’s third largest city and was named after the Scottish Governor of New South Wales – Sir Thomas Brisbane from 1821 to 1825. It is a vibrant young city rapidly growing and may be the second largest city in 10 years due to it’s sunshine, Gold Coast beaches and good infrastructure.
The tour had two main parts, visiting the city of Brisbane and visiting the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. The German / Australian guide was very good and well organised, giving us a lot of information about the city, it’s buildings and a bit of the flavour of the place that supposedly has 300 days of sunshine a year – not today, at least in parts! We receive 4 daily papers with news from the respective countries – Britain, Canada, USA and Latin America in Spanish. I was amused when reading the forecast for the day in the Spanish paper – “Chubascos intermitentes” – and that was accurate, we got sun then downpours. One of these downpours happened when we were inside the kangaroo enclosure with some 100+ kangaroos and Wallabies, we all clumped together under the tree for protection from the rain, but I digress! The city is built along the large meandering Brisbane river (like London) and at one photo stop at the top of the Mount Coat-tha hill, one got a very good view of the city and river. Unfortunately, due to the size of our ship we had to dock at the commercial port which was half an hour outside the city. So it took a while to get into the city for the tour to really start and then at the end of the day another half an hour shuttle bus ride back to the ship.
The highlight of the day was going to the Steve Irwin – Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Before he was killed by a Manta Ray / Sting Ray he had gained TV world fame as a “crazy Aussie” who tangles with crocodiles etc. He was an avid nature lover and conservationist and started this place to help save animals. Today, his daughter Bindi, son and family run the place and it has an extensive variety of animals (not just Koalas) and a vet hospital. Although one can imagine it as a zoo, it is more of a reserve, where one can come up close and personal with the animals. Without a doubt, the moment we had been waiting for was to be handed a Koala to hold and “cuddle”! A true highlight of the trip thus far. They are very soft and weigh about 6-8 lbs (3-4 Kg). The key is to hold firm ones clenched hands underneath their bottoms to give them the sense they are on a firm branch of the tree. If you move, they will start crawling up you to get to a “firmer branch”. That is a problem as their claws are long and sharp and with their opposing thumb can cause you a lot of pain! Fortunately, none of that happened and we had our picture taken with the Koalas to commemorate the unforgettable experience. In New South Wales (Sydney) one is not permitted to touch the Koalas, but in Queensland, where we are now, it is permitted and particularly as there are some 140 Koalas in the reserve, they visit with people for half an hour once every 2 weeks, thus avoiding the stress of human interaction. We then visited the Wombats, Tasmanian Devils, birds and other animals, before going into the Emu, Kangaroo, Wallabies enclosure – a 9 acre enclosure where hundreds of animals roam free and humans can “roam” with and amongst them. Yes this means petting, feeding and in general interacting with them. An interesting moment occurred when we saw a baby kangaroo (called a Joey) feeding from the teet in the pouch of it’s mother. The pouch seemed small (not much larger than the snout of the baby kangaroo), but expands, when the baby climbs in, head first with it’s legs flailing above, then slowly turns around until it’s head emerges from the pouch. Another interesting moment, apart from the hand feeding and petting, was at the time of the rain. We happened to be in the midst of a “Heard” / “Pod” (not sure of the correct term for a group) of some 120 kangaroos of all ages, that were lying down in the shade of a tree as it was a warm, sunny humid day. Then at the first rain, we put on rain coats and headed under the tree for shelter with them, they all stood up and remained standing until the heavy showers were over, then resumed their lying down positions. All in all, a truly unforgettable experience.
After leaving the sanctuary we headed back to town and were dropped off in the Center of town. It is easy to find one’s way around the grid pattern city streets as Male titles – King, Price, George etc run one way (North / South) and Female royals – Queen, Princess, Elizabeth etc run East / West. We wandered up the Queen Street Mall (named after Queen Victoria), the principal shopping and pedestrian mall area with 650 shops in 1 Kilometer, visiting the ANZAC (Australia, New Zealand Army Corps) memorial. There was a large grassy area in the park, which we used to help rid our shoes of the Kangaroo droppings we had stepped on in the enclosure! Next was a nice lunch of Moreton Bay Bugs and King Prawns in a garlic sauce. Before anyone should be surprised that our diet in Australia consisted of Bugs, Alligator and Kangaroo, I should explain. Bay bugs are prehistoric looking animals, similar to lobsters, but with very different features. The taste was similar to lobster but softer – delicious! All this was washed down with a pint of the local XXXX Gold brew. After the meal we wandered up and down the street going in and out of shops, helping the local economy. Tachy and Roger returned to the ship on the 5PM shuttle and Diana & Nelson (we found later) had taken the 5:30PM shuttle. I mention all of this as about 6:30PM, Diana called and said come to our cabin, I have a surprise. Indeed it was an amazing surprise. She and Nelson had found a Mexican restaurant in town and bought 4 meals of tacos with sauce, guacamole and even Jariots de Limon soda. So we sat in the cabin and enjoyed a delicious and reasonably authentic Mexican meal from Brisbane, Australia on a British ship. As a desert (pudding) we had the Mexican sweets that Tachy had brought back, purchased by Philip. A memorable day and an incredible end to the excitement and stay in Brisbane. After the great Mexican festivities we went to the side splitting comedy show of Jeff Stevenson. How can a day get any better!!!!
Monday March 14, 2016 – The day at sea after leaving Brisbane, where some 800 passengers got off and others got on making the tone of the ship totally different, since 1200 had got off and on in Sydney. The 2000 new passengers as well as different entertainers always provides for interesting times. There is a certain etiquette around the ship of greeting and chatting with all the fellow guests that the “newbies” need to learn and whenever there is a major change in the population it takes a while. This segment will see most going through to Hong Kong or Singapore where there will be a whole new change over. With each change thus far, the average age has gone down with more younger people and now mostly Australians, who in general are fun loving people. Today, we started off recognising and celebrating Commonwealth Day. On the second Monday in March the 53 nations across the world linked to the UK, celebrate Commonwealth Day and on board ship, the Captain and senior staff stood in the blazing top deck heat, while the Captain said a few words and the Commonwealth flag was raised for the day. It has a dark blue background with a central gold world image surrounded by 53 gold spikes. Next was Roy Hunt, a music historian giving a fun and revealing life history of Cole Porter. A wealthy, gay, but married to one wealthy woman all his life, musical genius. He had written some 700 songs by the time he was 20, attended Havard and Yale and had homes in Paris, Penthouse of the Waldorf Astoria in New York, and California. What made it particularly fun was that he would chat then put up lyrics to a famous Cole Porter song we all knew, bring out his metal guitar and all engaged in a sing-along. He will be doing 7 lectures about famous musicians which will be fun. Next was the Marine Biologist – Gloria Barnett. She spoke about the oceans and how the Pacific Ocean takes up 46% of the globe. A fascinating picture from space showing the entire Pacific covering the entire globe with just bits of Australia, New Zealand and America visible. She spoke of various animals and plants and the overall Biodiversity of the Ocean. Finally, Lindsay Murray, an Edinburgh microbiologist spoke in a boring monotone, on “Life – What is it?” from a Biology standpoint. If life is defined about having mobility, consumption, reproduction, excretion, growth then one can posit that the Queen Mary 2 ship is alive as it consumes petrol, it excretes smoke, it moves and if looked at as if a space person, it produced babies / small boats periodically – The tenders that take one ashore – therefore it is alive. As trees don’t move and the reproduction is difficult to see and there is little perceived growth each year, it can be said that trees do not have life. While these statements are obviously wrong, it was interesting to start (he has 5 more lectures) to explore Life and it’s definitions from a biology standpoint. As the evening show was Appasionata which we have seen often, we decide to play Majohng in the Evening which was fun. Diana has been at flower arranging classes during the afternoon and made white rose buttoniers and corsages for us to wear, so we were all dolled up in Dinner jackets with nice flowers in our lapels. Great fun.
Tuesday March 15, 2016 – The last day at sea before Yorkeys Knob, the (tender) port for Carins and The Great Barrier Reef, Australia. The day started with a session in the gym with trainer, followed by the marine biologist – Gloria Barnett talking about adaptations of creatures to sea life. Next was a “Celebrity ” speaker – Dale Templar – The Producer of the enormously successful BBC program – Human Planet. She discussed “backstage” issues regarding the filming of some of the episodes with clips. We were so enthralled that we acquired the DVD of the series and had her autograph them. Lindsay Murray, the boring Scotsman with fascinating topics discussed “Life Beyond our Planet” and the real science of extra terrestrial life, making a very good case for certain planets in the universe being in the “Goldilox” region (not too hot or too cold) and thus at a distance from their sun to potentially sustain life. The afternoon saw the very amusing Roy Hunt, the musical historian, this time discussing the poor Russian Jewish immigrant – Irving Berlin who (with Cole Porter) changed the face of Musical Theatre and Movies writing both the words and music to some 7000 songs, 30 Musicals and 25 movies. An amazing man who died at the age of 101. We got an early night as we were to be up tomorrow for our adventure to The Great Barrier Reef.
Roger & Anne Travels 