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We went out to the Melbourne airport early the next morning for our flight to Brisbane. It was good we were early as the lines were huge. It turned out that the Easter weekend fell back to back with the Aussie version of the Memorial day weekend and everyone in the country, or so it seemed, was leaving for a 5 day long weekend. After an hour in line we got to the counter and found that Qantas had cancelled our complete itinerary. We had a mad scramble to make new reservations which involved going through Sydney again in order to get to Brisbane. At this point we were just happy to find flights even though we would get there later in the day, given that this was the biggest travel day of the year in Australia.
We were picked up by a driver for our hotel and taken into the city. The Heritage hotel combines a very old government building and a new hotel tower, somewhat similar to the Palace hotel in New York. The main
restaurant is in the old building and is one of the city's finest restaurants. We made plans to eat there later. The room was very nice and had a wonderful view of the Brisbane River and all of the boat traffic up
and down the river.
 We went out for a walking tour of the area when we found out
that the city was going to shut down the next couple of days for the Easter Weekend. Brisbane is a very pleasant medium sized city with a downtown area that can be toured by walking. Beyond
all of the usual shops, we found two examples of interesting architectural details. The first was a store selling Australian opals, which had built a mosaic wall out of uncut, unpolished boulder opals.
 The most interesting was the old State Treasury Building which
had been turned into a high end casino which, on the outside, looked somewhat like the Monte Carlo Casino in Monaco with all of the columns and Victorian details. (Ed. Note: This looks like a
good plan for DC – fire the bozos who are going after Microsoft and turn the Injustice Department building into a casino… Hey – we're allowed – at the rate the market is tanking (thank you Janet
Reno) we're going to have to get real jobs again!)
As we went back to the hotel we noted that all the bars were filling up with partygoers who planned to party strong until the bars closed at midnight for 24 hours. It was sort of like a
small version of New Year's Eve. We had an excellent dinner at Siggi's, the restaurant in the old building attached to the Heritage and then went to bed to rest up for the next safari.
 One of the main attractions of Brisbane is the Lone Pine Koloa
Reserve, which is a boat ride up the river from downtown. We were happy to find that it operated on Easter Friday since Brisbane looked like an abandoned city. Did New Zealand declare
war over night and did everyone forget to tell us? Nope, the whole country just shuts down for this holiday and we felt lucky that the breakfast buffet was open in the hotel as all the
restaurants were also closed. We made our way across to the ferry and settled in for a guided tour up the Brisbane River. It was actually quite interesting and they pointed out many things
of interest along the way. But, lets not forget that this is the all animal tour and the best part lay ahead at the Reserve.
 It is against the law in most states for anyone to hold a Koloa, as they
are an endangered species and were nearly wiped out early in this century. The Lone Pine Koloa Reserve is an exception as they led the way to preserve these animals and are exempted from these laws. Thus, it's a
big draw for animal lovers. We headed right for that part of the park as soon as we got off the boat. The only minor catch is that you have to pay for them to take one photo of you holding the Koloa and then you can
take all the pictures you want. This was actually a good thing for us since their picture of Gisele and the Koloa was far better than any we
got (Ed. Note: but we had to include a bad one anyway!). The ranger was a little bit of a pill as she would not let Arnie in the picture but. as you will see, we made up for that later.
 Koloa's spend 20 hours a day sleeping so most of them are asleep
when you see them. To see open eyes is rare and they sleep in all sorts of positions wrapped around the tree branches and each other. We found dozens sleeping in various trees and they build
walkways into one of the tree areas so you can see them up close. We have a lot of photos for you Koloa lovers out there. Just ask and we'll put more up.
 The Reserve also had a number of open field areas that were the
home to many kangaroos. There were lots of moms and little ones as well. We spent an hour walking around feeding and petting them.  Arnie had a lot of photo ops and he had a chance to ride a kangaroo and an emu that did not think he was lunch. There were other animals as well like wombats
and one Tasmanian devil. He was a disappointment as he just slept in a hollow log, his Hollywood cousin is a lot more entertaining!
 We went back to the Koloa photo
area to get Gisele's picture and found another ranger showing a little guy to a small group. After they left she let us pet him and take lots of pictures. You can see him checking out Arnie in one of
the few times we saw their eyes open. After that it was time to clean our shoes carefully (lots kangaroos, need we say more) and head back to the boat for the ride back to town. In the interests
of fairness, we should point out that the weather was fine as it had been for most of the Australian trip to date. A little overcast now and again but none of
that four-letter "r" word stuff. And now we were heading north to the Gold Coast or Sun Coast in the tropical part of Australia. Five days of R & R on Orpheus Island, our little tropical
paradise on the Great Barrier Reef. We ate early and got to bed as we had another of those crack of dawn departures.
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