It has been a few days since I have updated the travel blog. We have been moderately busy visiting, and seeing the local sights in and around the local area. In the past few days we have visited One Pine Koala Sanctuary, McArthur’s Brisbane headquarters and the local flora and fauna. It is hard to believe we have been here three weeks and are on the last week of our visit.
We have enjoyed the variety of birds in the area. The Lorikeets are particularly colorful and fun to watch on the bird feeder.
And this little guy was a surprise as I was walking around. It is a Superb Fairywren. Not the best picture, but he is a beautiful shade of blue on his cheeks. Tiny bird.
Here is a Crested Pigeon…..very common bird, but unusual compared to the pigeons in the U.S.
and to Cormorants are fun to watch as they dive for fish.
One of the day trips we took was to the Lone Pine Koala Sancuary.
As you can tell from the pictures, they have more than Koalas there. One of the things we saw was working sheep dogs. It was amazing to watch them heard the sheep and move them around the paddock with minimal commands.
After they move the sheep in to the pens (in preparation for shearing) the dogs will literally walk on the backs of the sheep.
Of course there were lots of Koalas here.
Meet Freddy! A gentle soul!
We took the train from Manly to Brisbane and went to the McArthur Museum in downtown Brisbane. It was from Brisbane that the allies in the Pacific planned and started the drive to push the Japanese back toward Japan. The Museum is where McArthur had his offices and an apartment for his family. It has information on McArthur’s planning and the Brisbane story during the war. There were thousands of US troops in this area as the push North was planned and started. I was lucky on the day we visited. I was wearing my U S Air Force Retired baseball cap, which resulted in us getting free admission to the museum and a personalized tour of McArthur’s office.
Hallway to McArthur’s office.
McArthur’s office.
His desk
The result of a personalized tour. I really felt like a special guest of the Museum
Near the McArthur Museum is Queen Street. It is a pedestrian mall full of shops, stores and restaurants. It was a fun place to be, even on a rainy day.
If Hungry Jack’s looks familiar it is the equivalent of Burger King!!
H&M is a clothing store. From the looks I would think it sells high end fashion. It even had a projected movie of the clothes being modeled on one wall.
Typical of most big cities, it has both new and older buildings. We thought this one was particularly interesting.
Other found objects we saw. This may be a good place to get a hair cut.
I didn’t try one of these but a gelato donut sounds kind of good
However, the chocolate croissants are really good here.
As the end of this edition of this blog, I leave you with some pictures of flowers and trees in the local area. They are so different from what we have in the US.
Bottle Brush tree
Not sure what this is, but really pretty……growing out of a tree.
Bird of Paradise…….very common
Jacaranda tree. The blossoms are a beautiful lillac color. They are just starting to bloom as Australia moves into spring.
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