Located on the banks of the Brisbane River, the capital city of Queensland is relaxed, friendly, cool, casual, and so beautiful with pristine clean streets, active downtown bicycle stations, rolling hills and, of course, the requisite football arena. Australians love their football, though Americans know it more commonly as rugby. And, hand in hand with that, Australians love their beer and Brisbane has its share of breweries. It is said, mostly by the rival New Zealanders, that the popular local Brisbane brew known as XXXX got its name because Australians don’t know how to spell “beer”.

Another Australian icon is the endearing koala, so we set out to see them at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, the first and largest in the world, which allows visitors to get up close to koalas, free roaming kangaroos, and wallabies. Mistakenly named koala “bears”, koalas are actually not bears at all, but are closely related to the wombat. The Sanctuary is also home to unusual animals such as the emu, Tasmanian Devil, Wombat, Dingo, and Kookaburra.

Another amazing attraction of the Sanctuary are the sheep dogs, where we watched them perform highly trained herding techniques. The herding trait is inherent in these breeds and they handle the task with unbridled eagerness and precision….beautiful to watch. And, in the enduring tradition of the outback, sheep shearing was demonstrated by “cowboys” of the trade, who can gently and expertly shave a sheep down to the skin in under two minutes. And that spells FAST….without an “X”.

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