Brisbane/Gold Coast Part 1

In the last set of posts we answered the question, "Why Prague?"

So now we answer, "Why Brisbane?" We experienced lovely autumn days in Prague so naturally we thought we needed to explore spring in Australia. We are working our way across Australia and decided the next stop should be Brisbane- and we decided to visit Spring in Brisbane about 3 weeks after we returned from autumn in Prague.

We really enjoyed ourselves. We first spent a couple of days in Surfer's Paradise, Gold Coast- Surfer's Paradise is the name of the town and Gold Coast is not named for gold but for sunshine.

Then we moved on to Brisbane for the rest of our visit. They are situated about 1.5 hours apart.

Views from the hotel in Surfer's Paradise. and a couple of beach views. There are 35 km of beaches. (B note: we had a relaxation suite so the room was curved and had heavily blue tinted windows. Take our word for it, the view was gorgeous!)

Lots of tennis courts!

It got a little cloudy on this day but it was still fun to walk along the beach.

We found an interesting restaurant: Pancakes on the Rocks. They serve mostly pancakes all day long. We had one "entree" and one "dessert." (B comment: can you guess who got which?)

Surfer's Paradise draws a lot of people. It is a haven for surfers, but it is also filled with a lot of bars and clubs and there is a significant nightlife here. We were there on a Saturday and Sunday night. Saturday night at roughly 2 AM there were very large crowds of people out and about. Beyond the surfing, etc., there is every type of theme park: water world, movie world, dream world, sea world...

Our room overlooked the main drag. We had a noisy window we had to get fixed. It was windy and every time the wind kicked up there was a really noisy whistle. We didn't think it matched with the "relaxation" suite theme. After the all night noise the first night, on day 2 we stopped by the hotel desk to tell them about the whistling. They came and sealed the window. Yay!

Our hotel offered free shuttles to a few places so we took them up on the offer to travel to the
Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary.

It was an interesting place to explore. Lots of acres of eucalyptus and rainforest. It was started by a beekeeper. He started feeding wild rainbow lorikeets to distract the birds from eating his prized flower blooms. The feedings got popular and the place turned into a sanctuary.

I'm not a big fan of hands-on photo ops with wild animals but they had quite a few here - for an extra fee, naturally. The most popular venue seemed to be the "cuddle-a-koala." Large queues to get a photo next to a Koala. I don't think there was any actual cuddling.

Hopefully the animals are not stressed. Is it worth it to raise money? It's a not-for-profit with all revenue reinvested back into the park, in conservation-based research, public education and caring for sick and injured wildlife.

We did a Segway tour of the place first. We've done Segway tours a couple of times but never in a crowded place like this. We were there early so that helped but our guide had to ring her little bell quite a few times. I don't think most people were disturbed by having to move out of our way, but they may have thought us a little odd. The ranger who led the two of us around was very knowledgeable so it was fun. I will say, however, we had to keep both hands on the Segway so the only time we got to take photos was if we stopped and got off the Segway.

After our tour, we roamed the park a second time. At that point we could take photos. There are all sorts of shows and even a zipline added into the mix here. Such a great sky! Remember it's Spring so there were lots of trees in bloom.

Wonderful snake sculpture!

 Black-necked stork.

 Australian Brush Turkey

The on-site hospital takes in over 9500 animals a year!

We stopped by the hospital and were able to watch a small carpet python undergo surgery to amputate part of his tail. The vet and tech explained that he had been hit by a car and the injury had become life threatening so they decided to amputate. After a recovery period at the hospital the snake would be released back to the wild. A few other visitors stopped by this very interesting place but we were the only guests to hang out and watch the surgery. Cool!

We tried to donate money for the hospital but we couldn't find anyone who would take our money. We were shifted around the park by several helpful folks, but ultimately, the place we needed to go was closed on that day, inexplicably.

Once again, the food court at the sanctuary was a draw for wild ibis. Despite the multiple signs on each table, folks tend to just walk away and leave the remains of their meals sitting on the tables. I guess the Ibis don't read the signs either.The ibis show up in seconds and rip into the scraps. Workers try to pick things up quickly but I wish more folks would bus their own tables as the signs suggest. I stood up long enough to take a photo of the birds with only a drink on the table and one of the birds hopped up onto my chair ready to attack whatever was on the table.  We thoroughly bussed our table when we were finished!

As I mentioned, rainbow lorikeets were critical in the establishment of this wildlife sanctuary. The birds are still provided food 2x a day. Large numbers of wild birds know to fly in for food at these times. We were there too late for the early morning feeding and too early for the late afternoon so we missed seeing the huge flock. At times of the year when wild food is available to the birds, fewer lorikeets show up at the feedings.  We did, though, see a few of the lorikeets in the trees so we didn't miss the lorikeets entirely.

Such pretty skies.

We received an unexpected gift at check-in for our stay at the Gold Coast --a $100 gift certificate. I opted for a 1-hr  Hands, Feet and Scalp Rescue at the Spa. Fab! They also let me use a 15% off coupon I found for the spa. They were very nice. A win-win for me- a great massage for free. B didn't feel like a massage that day or we could have 2 massages at 50% off for each.