Brisbane, Koalas, and the Gold Coast

G'day Mates,

Sorry for the long delay, we promise we will start posting regularly again.  This past weekend we took our first trip outside of New South Wales to Queensland - we flew into Brisbane, about an hour flight north.  Mere planned* the trip around visiting the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, the world's largest  Koala sanctuary, where you even get to hold a Koala! (This is a big deal since it is illegal to hold them in some states, but not Queensland).

Us with "JJ" (Jax Junior)

*I use 'planned' loosely since she kind of just booked the first hotel that popped up on Expedia as our hotel was in the middle of nowhere.

It is technically a Koala sanctuary, but there were plenty of other animals to see such as Kangaroos,

Dingos, Emus, Cassowary (giant birds with a horn-like thing on their heads), a Platypus, and as John called the most disappointing animal in the world when he travelled to Australia a few years ago...

The Tasmanian Devil. Not sure how much drugs the Looney Tunes guys were, but this is not even close to the cartoon character.

After prying Mere away before she stole a Koala to take home (preferably this little guy),

we took a bus into the city, which is built along the Brisbane River. We walked along the South Bank Parks for some sightseeing.

After a day of walking around the city, we decided to stop for a couple of drinks and to rest at Super Whatnot. The bar manager happened to be from Indiana and gave us some restaurant and night life suggestions. We (I) took him up on his suggestion of the Archive Beer Botique in West End (not the apartments at Elon) where they have over 200 different beers. As chance would have it, we ended up meeting a couple from Adalaide who had just moved to Brisbane and hit it off.  We took them up on their offer to try surfing at the Gold Coast with them the following day.

Also, for those wondering if Santa is busy getting ready for Christmas...he's not.  He's chilling out in Australia

Does Mrs. Clause know Santa is hanging around with these elves?

Gold Coast consists of 57km (35 miles) of coastline. While Gold Coast is known for being pretty fake/trashy (they even have their own version of The Jersey Shore known as The GC), the part of the beach we went to, Burleigh Heads, was beautiful.  When we weren't being thrown around by the waves and the undertow, we attempted to surf:

Successfully I might add

and somewhat-successfully

Overall it was a great weekend as we got to see another part of Australia, made some new friends, and finally got to surf. One bonus of the trip was flying domestically in Australia, which has none of the anxiety/stress of flying in the US.  You can show up a half hour before your flight, and don't even need ID.  Also, if you're Mere, the Security Agents will hit on you on your way through the security check... with me standing right next to her.