G'day from Australia

G’day from Australia!  This was my first time down under and I was very excited!  First we went to Sydney. The ship docked right by the opera house, so that was a really cool sight to see first thing in the morning!  Sydney is a fantastic tourist spot.  There is so much to see there I don't know if you could see it all even if you stayed a month!  The first day I went on a tour to the Featherdale Wildlife Preserve and the Blue Mountains.  I got to feed kangaroos and take a picture with a koala and a tawny frogmouth, the bird you can see sitting on my hand in the upper right picture below.  There was a lot of fog at the Blue Mountains, so we didn't see many of the landmarks, but we did ride what they said was the steepest train in the world (or something like that) which turned out to be the track for an old coal mine.  Then we took an ariel cable car back up the mountain.

The next day I went out on my own to a place called The Rocks, which kind of reminds me of Old Sacramento, historical and bohemian.  They had a craft faire there so I got to do some shopping.  I got hopelessly lost on the way back though, and walked for hours trying to find the ship!  What I learned about maps that day is they're not very helpful if you don't know which direction you're going and which direction the map is facing.  That might sound elementary but I never thought about that before and I've used maps plenty of times.  But I think it was mostly in Sacramento where I had a general idea of where things were.  So I bought a compass at a local camping supply store.  We'll see if that helps.   I've started wearing these headscarves pretty much every day because it's humid here and I sweat so much my glasses fall right off so this helps keep my ears dry so the glasses stay on better and also keeps me from outright dripping everywhere.  That's something I didn't anticipate but it works really well.  Anyway, our second stop in Australia was Brisbane, where I disembarked the ship.  I am happy I did the cruise, it was definitely more fun than that long flight.  I learned a lot about British people and made some friends.  But I will not miss British food!  Not one bit!   I had one full day in Brisbane before my flight to Bali was scheduled, so I took a river cruise to the Lone Mountain Koala Sanctuary.  A friend in Sacramento had recommended it so I was glad I was able to go.  It was really nice!  I got to play with more kangaroos and they had emus wandering around, which was cool.  I love emus and ostriches, I think they are the most fascinating birds!  Being the animal enthusiast that I am, I was quite happy to spend another day with the wildlife and I learned a few more things about Australian species.  I did take one really cute picture, shown below, of what I thought were wombats.  But when I got back and looked up wombats I realized that that's not what they were.  Someone said they are wallabies, but when I look up wallabies, they look like miniature kangaroos.  So I'm still not sure what these are.  Someday I will solve the mystery.  Here's the picture... After we got back from the koala sanctuary, I walked around South Bank for awhile, which all the young people told me is the ONLY thing to do in Brisbane.  I could see their point, it is very hip with beaches and hangout spots, chic stores and restaurants.  I learned my lesson from Sydney, when I had had enough I went to a main street and hailed a taxi back to my hotel.  Much better. I'm learning!  I found Brisbane to be very expensive and not as much fun as Sydney.  I would go back to Sydney if the chance arose, but probably not Brisbane.