18:04 Sun.
12 Nov, 2017

Last Days in Australia

Sydney , Australia
20 °C
Mostly Cloudy
5:46 am
7:35 pm

After arriving we found our way to hostel we booked in the city center. Since we wanted to go to the Sydney’s marathon the next day, which started early morning, we didn’t have time to stay at Veronika’s relatives in the suburbs. Since we arrived too early we left our backpacks at hostel and left to explore the city. We visited a market, where a lot of Asians were selling all kings of cheap stuff. We bought some souvenirs and gifts here, some were actually made in Australia and had certificate (if it wasn’t counterfeit).

For lunch we decided to visit famous Sydney’s fish market, which had really great reviews. The fish marked looked really good, there were tons of fresh food raw and cooked. Sadly everything was very expensive, in the end we decided to grab a 2 person’s plate with various sea fruits, which was about 50$. It was pretty disgusting, so I would say if you aren’t prepared to spend more than 200$ on lobster don’t go to the fish market.

After the lunch we walked around the city some more. I really liked the dead end streets with circular ending so you can turn your car around. We also saw some old building in the city center alongside high modern skyscrapers.

In the evening Veronika’s cousin brought us the rest of the suitcases that we have left at their place so we finally checked in at the hostel. After a short shower in the most disgusting bathroom I ever was in (the water was leaking from the ceiling)  we were ready to explore the city a bit more. We took another hike through the Royal botanical gardens, from where there is a great view of the opera and Harbour bridge. We sat there and watched the sunset, together with around 50 tourists.

Sydney Skyline
Sydney Skyline

After the sunset we had to go back to our hotel to get some much needed sleep. Next morning we had to wake up really early to get to the marathon. Veronika had decided to participate, so we took metro under the bridge to the other side  where the start was. There was great view of the opera from this side.

Before the marathon
Before the marathon

The rout went over the bridge and then around the city center. I walked over the bridge and took couple of more photos.

Veronika in Sydney's marathon.
Veronika in Sydney’s marathon.

After the run we took couple more photos and then sadly had to head back to our hotel to prepare for our departure in a couple of hours.

Veronika after the marathon.
Veronika after the marathon.

Sadly we lost almost 2 days of exploring the city with flight cancellation, still we had about 4 days of exploring the city which was enough to get the first impression. It is a nice city to visit, from all the cities however I preferred Melbourne but most of all I loved our trip in the Queensland, there is so much to see and so much to do there compared to the rest of the country.

Sadly this was the end of our great trip to Australia. I definitely loved every day of it and would love to return. I’m a bit sorry I didn’t know about working holiday before (now I’m almost too old for it), it would be an interesting experience living in New Zealand or Australia for a year. Anyway at 3 PM we boarded our plane and left Australia. After gruelling 23 hours we touched down in Venice.

06:03 Sun.
12 Nov, 2017

And Cancelled flight :(

Gold Coast , Australia
20 °C
Partly Cloudy
4:47 am
6:14 pm

On Wednesday, late morning, we checked out of the hotel and walked couple of hundred meters to the central train station where we took the an hour long train to the Gold Coast.

Waiting for train in Brisbane.
Waiting for train in Brisbane.

The Gold Coast is a tourist city full of skyscrapers alongside the beach. After a bit of searching we found our hotel (Meriton Suites again). At check-in we were pleasantly surprised when we learned that our room is going to be in 53rd floor with a view over the sea. This was by far the highest I ever slept and the view was fantastic. The hotel also had an indoor and outdoor swimming pool with fitness and sauna. The apartment was a bit smaller than the one in Brisbane but  more than enough spacious.

For these last days we decided to take it easy. We spent most of the time watching tv, cooking, swimming and going for a strolls through the city. Since city stretches for some length along the beach, we used local tram to get from one end to other faster.

Waiting for a tram.
Waiting for a tram.

Both mornings we were waken by a gorgeous sunrise over the sea.

Sunrise from 53rd floor.
Sunrise from 53rd floor.

On Friday morning we had a flight scheduled at 8AM, so we were up at 6 and ready to leave. Just when we checked out however, we got an SMS that our flight was cancelled. After trying to get TigerAir (airline) on the phone. I guess everyone was also tying to do that since we arrived at the airport (1 hour away) before they picked up. The airport was full of stranded people, the reason why the flight (and others) were cancelled was because there was strong wind in Sydney so planes couldn’t land there. For some reason we could not get an alternative flight before Sunday afternoon which was too late for us, since we had flight back to Europe at 3PM. We looked at option for renting a car, but since we would have to leave it in Sydney it would cost us around 400€ (the flight ticket was around 60€/person) (btw which we didn’t get refunded, but only got 60€ positive balance if we book another flight in the next 6 months, which we obviously cannot do!! 🙁 furthermore my company ensured me for 100k€ but of course flight being cancelled was not included so I didn’t get anything from insurance either).

Left with no other option we had no choice but to book another bus to Sydney.  After another 16 hours overnight (and day) with bus we arrived to Sydney, tired and cranky, on Saturday morning. We were quite upset about this, since we lost whole Friday and half of Saturday.

At least we had an opportunity to see this cow gas station on the way.
At least we had an opportunity to see this cow gas station on the way.
17:58 Sat.
11 Nov, 2017

Crocodile Hunter

Landsborough , Australia
23 °C
Mostly Sunny
6:10 am
12:00 am

On Tuesday morning the only trip we had planned well in advances was about to happen. First stop was local car dealership where we rented a car. I was quite nervous driving through such a big city on the opposite side of the road for the first time, but after an hour or so I got used to it. The car had automatic transmission which helped a lot, since I didn’t have to shift with my left hand. I did however turn on the wipers couple of times instead of the turn signal.

Driving on the left side for the first time.
Driving on the left side for the first time.

After about an hour and half of driving we reached our destination The Australian Zoo. The zoo was first created by legendary Steve Irwin – the crocodile hunter and is now run by his family.

The ZOO is quite large, about 2 or 3 times the size of the Koala sanctuary. The whole philosophy of the zoo is that you can book private encounters with most of the animals they have. This one is to some degree more traditional zoo as they also have animals not native to Australia, like giraffes, rhinos and so on. Speaking of foreign animals the first thing we had planned after coming, was encounter with lemurs.  We were very excited about it for quite some days already. ZOO keeper told us everything we needed to know on our way to the island where lemurs lived.  To reach the island we had to go on a small raft and as we were closing toward the island lemurs were already running around the landing port waiting eagerly for us. We brought food for them after all.

Lemur Island. Running toward us as we arrived.
Lemur Island. Running toward us as we arrived.

They were soon all over us and we had a chance to take some photos while they were standing on our shoulders. Despite their look they are quite heavy and having one on shoulders ruins ones posture. 🙂

After the photo shooting we  sat on a close by rock and zookeepers gave us some food that we could give them. By the looks of it they eat everything from vegetables to meat. They had great variety of food to choose from but they seemed to really like peas as they picked them out and ate them first.  We had the opportunity to touch/pet them meanwhile (especially on their tail). If the kangaroo’s fur was soft before, it was nothing compared to lemurs. It is hart to describe but their fur was softer than silk. It would be perfect pillow material.

Feeding Lemurs
Feeding Lemurs

Time flew and after about half an hour it was time for us to leave. We had high expectations about this encounter even before arriving to Australia and Veronika and I both agree that it was worth it. It is simply hard to express how cool it was, all I can say is if you ever happen to be in Australia, it’s worth taking a plane just to visit this zoo and have an encounter with lemurs.

After the lemurs we had to hurry to catch the show this zoo is most famous about – the crocodile show. The show is held in the arena and they demonstrate some tricks with a bunch of birds and of course the crocodile. Surprisingly I preferred the birds part compared to crocodile. They had great variety of birds from parrots, cockatoos to enormous condor. Seriously that thing was about 3-4m over the wings.  The funniest part was when they trained a cockatoo to go to a random visitor and take 5$ bill out of his hand (you can see this in the video below).

After the birds they brought out a giant crocodile which they fed and made jump a bit out of the water.

After the show we had a chance to visit the rest of the zoo. They had vast variety of animals, tons of crocodiles, koalas and of course the kangaroos. We also saw some giant lizards and very fun otters.

We also saw some gigantic turtles, cassowary and the most venomous snake in the world, safely behind the glass, of course.

When walking around the dingo’s enclosure we saw them attack one of the smaller lizards (who were again walking all over zoo). After the zookeepers saw that, they went in and the dingoes were running around them like dogs – expect the one who had the lizard in his mouth. He was running away from the zookeepers. After the zookeeper finally got the lizard from the dingo they took him to the animal hospital they have in front of the zoo.

Dingoes fetching some lizards
Dingoes fetching some lizards

Talking about walking a dog… you can actually walk a cheetah here.

Walking cheetah in Australian zoo.
Walking cheetah in Australian zoo.

In the late afternoon we had another encounter booked, this time with a native animal we did not see in nature yet – the wombat. The encounter was fun, but nothing compared to lemurs. Supposedly wombats get scared easily so we could only pet them from behind where they have some super protective ass area or something. Veronika did massaged one really nicely however, it went pancake flat on the plate of food.

Just as the last zoo this one also had two enormous enclosures full of kangaroos you could pet and feed. It was just as fun as previous day and this time I also did some posing with them. We finally saw one with baby (joey) in the pouch.

Le Moustache.
Le Moustache.

We also saw some white kangaroos.

With this we concluded our visit to the zoo, it was fun day’s trip and we did see enormous amount of animals. It’s well worth visiting.

Koala close up.
Koala close up.

Since we had a car, we decided not to take the highway back to Brisbane but take a longer rout that goes more inland. Sadly it was soon dark but it was an interesting experience. Couple of minutes of driving toward the mainland the road went from asphalt to gravel and soon we felt like we were in the middle of nowhere.  We stopped at the top of a small hill where there was no (city/house) light for as far as the eye could see and in between there were some pointy mountains growing from nowhere.

We arrived to Brisbane couple of minutes before midnight and prepared for next day when we were living for Gold Coast.

 

18:51 Sun.
5 Nov, 2017

I wonder what animal we will see?

Brisbane , Australia
19 °C
Partly Cloudy
4:53 am
6:10 pm

Monday morning we took an hour bus through the Brisbane’s suburbs to the Lone Pines Koala Sanctuary. Despite it’s name it is a normal zoo, with multiple species of Australian animals.

Sup homie?
Sup homie?

The zoo is of moderate size, maybe a bit smaller than Ljubljana’s. The main difference compared to the standard zoos elsewhere is that you can actually take a photo with a koala or go and feed a kangaroo. Yea, that’s right, kangaroos just roam large enclosure where you can enter or leave at your leisure. Moreover you can buy some kangaroo food for couple of $ and you can actually feed them.

Feeding a kangaroo
Feeding a kangaroo

We saw variety of sizes of kangaroos ranging from a small ones to the ones you could look straight into their eyes when they were standing in front of you. Despite being very muscular and large, we felt quite safe around them. They were mostly chilling, I guess being fed by the tourists whole days long gets them super lazy.

We were pretty excited about petting them, one thing that surprised me the most was how soft their fur was. It looks rough and dirty where in reality it was silky soft (even with the big ones) almost like a puppy.

Kangaroo
Kangaroo

Besides kangaroos we also watched a bird show where they flew some owls and eagles around and told us about them. It was interesting to see them fly just few centimetres in front of us.

Eagle
Eagle

And to see an owl gulp up whole mouse in a couple of seconds.

After the birds we went to see a sheep show, where they used 3 dogs to bring a group of ship from one side of the park to the other. It was fun watching the dogs run around the sheep while bringing them home alone. They also looked like they had a lot of fun, guess it beats fetching a stick.

After the shows we took the opportunity to hold a koala and take a photo with it. Again just like with kangaroos it’s fur was very soft, and it was surprisingly heavy.

Me and Veronika posing with a koala. One of my favourite photos from the trip.
Me and Veronika posing with a koala. One of my favourite photos from the trip.

Besides holding it we also had an opportunity to watch in several enclosures around the zoo. However they are not very active animals and sleep more than 20 hours per day. Luckily we were just in time for the zookeepers to change their food (eucalyptus) which made them a bit more active as they climbed around to get to the food.

All over the zoo we saw hundreds of large lizards. For some reason they weren’t enclosed but were freely running around the paths trying to find some sun rays.

Big lizard
Big lizard

Again we saw some dingoes, they were just remodelling their enclosure so they were in a smaller one but still seemed pretty happy. I think they were quite tamed and used to people. I think I saw some zookeepers walking one just like a dog.

So far most of the animals we saw we also saw in nature, or at least their close relatives. They did however have a couple of animals that are a bit more exotic that we didn’t see before.

And we also saw the strangest of all the animals – the platypus.

All in all we had a great day. We spent most of the time among kangaroos which were most fun to interact with and saw a couple of quite exotic animals for an European. However just next day we had a plan to visit something we knew since day one of our planning we will visit (hint: another zoo).

Some more photos from the zoo.

 

 

18:39 Sun.
29 Oct, 2017

Room in a tallest building in the city

Brisbane , Australia
25 °C
Partly Cloudy
4:58 am
12:00 am

We came back from Fraser island on Saturday evening.  The bus for the last stage of the trip was leaving on Sunday morning, so we had some time to explore the city of Rainbow Beach. As with most of the cities we visited up here in the north it was a small tourist city, full of students on a holiday visa. The interesting thing in the city is it has a large desert dune at the sea side toward south-east, from where it is nice to view the sunset. Sadly when we got there it was cloudy so no sunset and super cold (as usual for winter nights in Australia).

I wish I would put this image at every post. Basically we visited whole East coast seen on this image. From Melbourne and 12 apostles in the south to Cairns in the north and everything in between.
I wish I would put this image at every post. Basically we visited whole East coast seen on this image. From Melbourne and 12 apostles in the south to Cairns in the north and everything in between.

The next day early morning we took a bus to Brisbane. The last stage of our trip was only about 300 km so at noon we were already in Brisbane.

As always we stopped in between the trip couple of times, this time it was at gigantic kangaroo.
As always we stopped in between the trip couple of times, this time it was at gigantic kangaroo.

While it was an interesting experience going backpacking and sleeping in hostels at this point we were craving for some privacy. We met tons of new people and it was fun to hang out with them for some time, but at some times the age difference (they were mostly in their late teens or early twenties) did bring some tension or at least annoyance at our side (especially if they were British >.<). It was still fun though, for 10 days! That is why we booked an apartment in Brisbane. We would have booked a hotel but for some reason apartments are more than 2 times cheaper than hotels with additional bonus of having a kitchen which also saves money since you don’t have to eat outside. And to top it of they also have room service so each day they clean your room/apartment just like in a hotel.

When we arrived to Brisbane at around noon we were pleasantly surprised that our hotel was just couple hundred meters away from main bus/train station in the city center and that it was the tallest building in the city. It had around 80 floors in total, sadly we only got an apartment in 26th floor.

Hotel in Brisbane
Hotel in Brisbane

The apartments as all we’ve been in Australia was amazing. It had a large kitchen, living room, toilet and bathroom with bathtub and gorgeous bedroom with a view over the river and the city. This was really the best view I ever had anywhere. When you went to sleep you could look through the large windows directly onto the lights of the city below. The whole apartment was about 70 square meters and also had a fitness, sauna and swimming pool in the bottom floor of the skyscraper. It was almost shocking to sleep in a nice and soft bed after sleeping on the floor in Fraser island while some giant, cute rat like animals crawled over and through our tents in search of food (I forgot to mention that in previous post).

We stayed in Brisbane for total of four days /3 nights. It is an enormous city, we did some sightseeing around the city center and drove the ferry up and down the river. However we did want to relax a bit more after the intense 10 days of from Cairns to Brisbane.

During the day we explored the city center on foot and made some preparations for Monday and Tuesday where we had some animal petting on our schedule, while in the evening we went to the pool. All in all it was nice to visit but not much to do in the city alone. However there are thousands of fun activities to be done in close proximity, but more on this in my next post.

Meriton Suites Herschel Street, Brisbane - Night view from our bedroom.
Meriton Suites Herschel Street, Brisbane – Night view from our bedroom.

 

 

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