Day 9: Atop Shark Infested Waters

What a great night's sleep! Finally sleeping in an air conditioned room for the first time since arriving in Australia, I slept like a rock. We didn't meet until 9:30, which meant an even longer rest than usual! I woke up around 8:30 and Reel and I took turns showering and using the kitchen to scramble up some eggs. My breakfast consisted of 3 eggs, 2 pieces of toast, and a glass of orange juice. Not a huge breakfast, but plenty to tide me over until lunch.

Today Captain Anoop took us on a city boat ride down the Brisbane River. He took off at a blistering pace (he forewarned us we would be walking faster today) so that we would make the 10:30am dock time. We made it to the boat in plenty of time. Most of the students, professor Hein, and Karen Rogers (who I failed to mentioned joined our journey yesterday upon arrival in Brisbane) took seats on the top deck while Anoop and a couple of others took a seat inside the lower cabin. I wanted to get some great shots, so I chose the top deck to avoid having a window glare in my pictures.

Before departing, the crew served all the guests on board an array of donuts and pastries with coffee, of which I took a jelly donut and a coffee with plenty of cream and sugar. Before long though we were off, motoring down the river. We had two jolly fellows guiding the boat and they took turns telling us the history of buildings and the river. For the most part they were interesting. They welcomed any questions we had about what we were seeing, but told us that they would most likely make something up if they didn't know the true answer. They sure did have some creative stories! Here is a look at the sights while we traveled down the river:

Perhaps the most alarming fact about the Brisbane River is that it is indeed a saltwater river. Which, unfortunately, means that fairly frequently bull sharks can be seen swimming in the river. The crew happily informed us that the M.V. Neptune had never lost a passenger, which made everyone feel only slightly better. Anyway, the trip down the river and back ended just before noon and we were free for the rest of the day. Everyone had a temporary structures assignment due about Sydney, so we grabbed a quick bite of lunch downtown (I tried a couple of styles of pasta) and caught a bus back to our hotel in Woolloongabba.

I took a quick power nap, then proceeded to McDonald's (called "maccas" here) to use their WiFi and meet up with everyone else to knock out the assignment. A couple of hours later, it was done! Though the McDonald's internet was incredibly slow, so we had to wait to submit our papers until we found a stronger internet connection.

Around 7:00pm the group met up again with Hein, Anoop, and Karen to head down to a brewery for dinner. I missed the memo about dinner and so I literally finished up dinner right before heading downstairs to meet the group. I hung out at the brewery watching some cricket (Trying to learn how it works!) and chewing the cud with some other folks before heading back to the hotel. On the way back to the Hotel, I called Brittany to do devo (30 minutes early by accident...). After we finished (she was just beginning the day I was ending, ironically enough) I headed back upstairs to do some blogging, but ended up going back to McDonald's to do the posting. Exhausted, I finally got to bed pretty late (thank goodness I took a nap!). Of course tomorrow would be an early morning, as we were going to hike another mountain. No matter, I'm up for it!