1st week in Australia

Brisbane, Australia - our first week. These notes were written a little at a time.

It's Friday evening, and we arrived in Sydney Sunday night. Craig managed to sleep over 10 hours, which might be a record.
We enjoyed walking around the Botanical Gardens in Sydney for a few hours, before continuing on to Brisbane Monday.

Link to 1st week in Australia

June had spoken highly of this city after a business trip, so Craig checked out biking here, liked what he saw, and we decided to come. We are very happy we did. We spent 2 days walking around 'all over', partly to do errands, and we had arranged a travel clinic appointment ahead of time. We also just meandered around the neighborhoods, and admired what turned out to be Jacaranda trees, which are blooming now. The architecture is interesting.

Everything is clean; public transit is excellent, with helpful and polite drivers, and courteous passengers who always say 'thank you' when getting off. The ferry system is 21 years old I think now, and many of the docks are nicely designed, and there is no graffiti anywhere.
Entering Australia in Sydney was incredibly efficient! Hardly any lines despite several arriving jets; the on-line visa system, and electronic passport check worked, which meant we never were interviewed, and the only duplication, was filling out the same form on paper on the plane, and then again at their kiosk.
The one thing I thought one should be made aware of ahead of time, is that the government here requires all airplanes to be sprayed inside, before passengers can get off. Not that many would choose not to come here... but I definitely could smell the spray (they opened the overhead bins and sprayed in there, with some insecticide I presume). And later they disinfected Craig's boots. This showed some inconsistency, as my soles also had dried dirt on them, but the agent I passed, never said anything.

Biking in the city is a bit hairy in our minds despite the bike lanes, but I never liked biking in Boston either.
Today at 5.20 am, we met Heather, who is a friend of our friends Bev and Chris. She yesterday invited us to join her group of friends for their Friday morning ride. I am pleased to have kept up pretty well for the 20 miles, as they all were strong; this was my first 'training ride' in 2+ years, now on the 'wrong' side of the road, with faster cyclists constantly passing us, up & down bridges, along side streets with frequent turns, and a few rotaries.. I didn't see much more than the backs of the others, and the road in front of me, and am happy we made it. Of the 5 of us who stayed for a cup of coffee afterwards, only one woman was a true Australian, but the others had lived here for decades. Brisbane seems very international, with road signs in the business district in several Asian languages.
We are the old people at the Airbnb house we booked for the first week, in the city. The house is very nice; the Australian owners are in their 30s; there's a young couple from Slovakia, here for close to a year, attending English classes and traveling; also a young French couple with a 1-year-visa, which allows them to work for room and board while they travel. We learned about the web site they use, and low and behold - I found listings for such stays in both MA and CT.
We have our own bathroom, but share the large kitchen, and everyone is friendly.

After our morning ride, we went to the Lone Pine Koala Preserve. It was very nice to see these super cute animals, and also many others native to Australia. But I think they could improve the living conditions for several of them, especially the dingoes. They were kept in something that reminded me of an old fashioned zoo from my childhood.
There was a big field with kangaroos and their 'cousins', e.g. wallabies. Small children, like 18-month-olds, went up to them, and petted them. This scared me, as the kangaroos have large claws, but I assume they have been born and raised in captivity. You could buy feed, and they would eat out of your hand. Fortunately they had a rest area, where they could go to escape us people.
Then Saturday Heather invited us to join more friends, when they took their dogs for an early morning play date, and walk, near Brisbane. We so appreciate her kindness, as we have had lots of fun on these outings. After all this, she invited us to her home for dinner, where we enjoyed meeting her husband Tim, daughter Claire, and more of their friends. We truly hope we can reciprocate at some point!! THANK YOU Heather, and you, too, Bev for introducing us!!

We have had some rain, and the locals say it has been unusually cool. But we have had a couple of perfect days also. Went to the Queensland Art Museum one rainy day, and I very much liked their exhibit on, and by Australia's indigenous peoples. So all is well, and we have enjoyed being back in more familiar surroundings, even though everything is different.
Am finishing this after our arrival in Goodna, west of the city. Our new local friends did wonder what in the world made us come here... The answer is we thought biking here would be nice, and found a nice and reasonable Airbnb, which we again have all to ourselves. The sharing part will happen only occasionally I think.
I think I am back in my younger days of bumming around Europe, and decided we should save money, and use public transit from Brisbane to Goodna. This worked well in my mind, but Craig was less enthusiastic carrying his backpack, while pulling a suitcase, and rolling the bike. I can't quite understand how someone so fit thinks this was an ordeal. He says it is his cultural background... We will rent a car soon, but I saved us some $40, which I think is worth a little lugging, on a big trip.Link to 1st week in Australia