River City

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Brisbane is known as "River City" and with good reason. The beautiful Brisbane River is the focus of this cities, transportation, recreation and beauty. Our hotel suite Quay West (pronounced Key West) was a corner unit with a view over the Brisbane River, on one side, overlooking South Bank, a major recreational and restaurant area. The view out the other side was the lush Brisbane Botanical Gardens.

About 9 PM on December 23, the day we arrived, a stunning firworks display was put on to celebrate our arrival, or so we chose to believe (see pic from our balcony). Locals thought the fireworks were put on by Southbank to celebrate Christmas (Talk about self-centred. Really.) There are also photographs of the Gardens from our balcony on the other side.

We had a lovely turkey dinner for Christmas eve (see pic). It was nothing like the dinner we enjoy at home (no stuffing!) but enjoyable nonetheless.

A highlight of our visit to Brisbane was an hour and a half (each way) cruise up the Brisbane River to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, the largest koala sanctuary in Australia. We saw koala's, which are not bears but marsupials, throughout the park and all, except Stephen, held one (see pic of Jennifer). Jan and Jennifer hand fed some Kangaroos and we saw a joey (a baby Kangaroo) with his mother. In the wild 80% of joey's die in their first year. We also saw a fresh water crocodile, wombat and snake (see pics).

I also included some photos of houses along the river and the "City Cat" a river-based bus service used by locals to go to and from work and shopping. This reminded me of the Grand Canal in Venice.