Brisbane - River Boat Tour to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary 🏙️ ⛴️ 🦘 🐨 🦜 🌆

 Thursday, May 23:

My bus arrived in Brisbane at 6 a.m.

After riding the bus all night, I walked uphill to the hotel with my luggage (taking the long way since I couldn’t haul my suitcase upstairs), left it at the hotel, and then walked to the river for a riverboat tour to the Lone Pine Animal Sanctuary.

They call this bird a Bin Chicken, because it likes to eat from the rubbish bin. Its real name is Sacred Ibis, but they are very common in Brisbane, and not considered sacred.

My first sight of homelessness in Australia

I think our guide said there are 7 bridges in Brisbane

Heaps of beautiful houses on the river

We arrived around 10:30 a.m. and had until 1:30 to explore the Sanctuary.

I got there just as the Lorikeet feeding was ending

You can walk among the kangaroos and feed them

Zoom in to see the kangaroo drinking water with a pigeon

Young students on a field trip

(So glad I wasn’t a teacher or parent chaperone!)

Raptor show

Sheep herding show

Wombat

Omigosh! The Koalas! The staff has to keep adding fresh eucalyptus leaves constantly!

Gang-gang cockatoo

Kookaburra

White Cockatoo

These koalas are perched in the open around the cafeteria dining area

Emu (the kids were daring each other to touch it). 

I touched it, and the feathers were rough, not soft.

(My feet started itching 

while I was looking at the Crocodile)

Southern Cassowary -  endangered and dangerous

Dingo

A random lizard I saw while exiting

We took the riverboat back to the city dock. I chatted with a couple from Sacramento who I ended up sitting behind.

I walked back to the hotel alone, crossing the Kurilpa bridge.

Roma Parkland Station 

(where my bus had arrived to that morning)

I was feeling alone and triggered from going to the animal sanctuary and thinking about all the questions dad would have asked there and on the boat, and the time he would have taken to read every sign and how much he would have enjoyed this outing. It was so chaotic in the hotel lobby with all the Camp Widow early arrivals talking excitedly, that after I checked in I just took the elevator up to my room with my luggage because I wanted to escape. Also, my feet were killing me with blisters, cracked heels, and red, itchy spots. (Later several people told me they thought they were midge bites, sand flies.) I had been wearing my flip-flops because of the blisters, but that exposed me to the bites & cracked heels!

Cracked heel

Aah! To stop walking and settle in my hotel room!

The view from my room

Although I really tried, I never succeeded in getting a roommate. It was probably just as well since I needed some emotional space, and also physical space to spread out all my stuff & not worry about being neat.

My daughter Joy had sent me a card & butterfly necklace for Mother’s Day, but it didn’t arrive at the house I stayed at on Mother’s Day until a few days after I had left. So Judith forwarded it to the Hotel where I would be in Brisbane. When I got to the hotel to check in and retrieve my luggage, I got the card, too, and after settling my luggage in my room, I opened it.

It was great timing for me to receive the card with Joy’s encouraging words of affirmation, as I was physically and emotionally exhausted from everything you have read in this post. I wore the butterfly necklace at Camp Widow and the whole way home. It reminds me of Joy’s love and support, and that I am a butterfly who has emerged from the chrysalis, even when I feel like a caterpillar or when I want to crawl back into the chrysalis.

I sent an email to my blog update notification group requesting prayer, and then I went for a refreshing swim in the rooftop swimming pool to cool off and reset. 

View from the pool

Back to my room before my shower

Then after my shower

Brisbane - River Boat Tour to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary  🏙️ ⛴️ 🦘 🐨 🦜  🌆

By the time I got to the lobby, early registration had ended, so I had to wait until Friday morning to get my conference materials. But the Camp Widow participants were gathered for drinks and dinner, and a lady named Robyn reached out to me immediately and included me in her newly formed circle of 4 widows, and we stayed connected through the weekend. It was so helpful to have a core group that felt like family to me.

Sharon (from Western Australia), Jude (from New Zealand), me, Lucy (from Noosa), and Robyn (from Perth)

We all walked down together to a nearby grocery store to buy food for our breakfasts so we wouldn’t have to pay for the $30 hotel buffet.

I had done a lot of walking that day!