Brisbane and The Gold Coast, Australia
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| The City of Brisbane during the day | One of the main bridges in Brisbane | The City of Brisbane at night |
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| Drew driving on the "wrong" side of the road | D62 Swanson Family in receiving line | D63 Swanson Family in receiving line |
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| D610 David and Liva with her mother and Ieva | D69 | D64 David introducing Motohiro to Liva |
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| D65 Motohiro meeting bride | D66 Motohiro meeting bride | D68 Motohiro and the bride and groom |
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| D515A Receiving Line | D58A Receiving Line | D59A Receiving Line |
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| D523A Sabrina and DeeAnn McGary | D521A Julie and Walt Seaborg | D520A Julie and Walt Seaborg |
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| D524A Johnson Family | D513A Mirliani Family | D514A Mirliani Family |
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| D61 Gunnard Swanson | D55A | D510A |
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| D516A | D512A | D511A |
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| D517A Nathan Gunther | D518A Nathan Gunther | D519A Nathan Gunther |
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| D522A Esther and Christine Swanson with John and Carol Wright | D56A | D57A |
We were off to Brisbane, Australia to visit the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary and Currumbian Wildlife Sanctuary. After landing in Brisbane, Drew had his first experience with driving on the opposite side of the road than Americans drive. He was pretty scared the first time, but he caught on pretty quickly. Dawna was in charge of navigating our way to each of these sanctuaries. A pretty big job as well. With complete jetleg from our flight, we were off on our first great adventure.
We arrived at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary without too many problems. Dawna was immediately caught by all the bird life. It took a little convincing to get her into the sanctuary, because she was content just looking around at the new environment. Drew just mentioned that the koala bears were waiting and she took off running. We entered this sanctuary and immediately headed to the koala bears. We were the last people in line to hold the koalas, so we were given a little more time with them. Dawna remembers our koala smelling like a delicious meal of eculyptus. Drew remembers our koala smelling like, marsupial smell. What ever he smelled like, we were in heaven. Between the two of us, we took lots of photos (although Dawna still wishes we took just a few more).
After this great adventure, we were off to explore the rest of the Australian wildlife. Kangaroos seemed like the next logical choice. We were immediately greeted with lots of kangaroos, all trying to stay cool in the warm winter sun. Many of the mother kangaroos had joeys in their pouches. Every so often you would see a foot or a tail pop out of mom's pouch. It is no wonder that momma kangaroo stayed pretty still. In this section we also met a very large emu. Dawna wasn't sure if the emu was just checking her out for food, or wanted her camera equipment.
After spending some time with the kangaroos, we were both ready to head to the hotel and take a shower. After all it had been a day or so since we last felt warm water hitting our faces. So we quickly looked through the rest of the sanctuary and we were off to find our hotel. Without too many wrong turns, we were at our hotel. A nice hotel on the water with a simple bedroom...not bad. We took our shower and headed off to the Gold Coast, about an hour away from Brisbane to visit the Currumbian Wildlife Sanctuary.
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