Brisbane Forest Park

A beautiful day in Brisbane, Australia. 75 degrees and sunny...not to upset any of those still in Texas with the three digits continuing through the summer. Today we (Alex, Marc, and I) went to Brisbane Forest Park. Only 30 minutes, a train, and bus ride away and we were there.

We bushwalked the Araucaria and Corymbia trails. They were both beautiful and interesting, having many of the plants (epiphytes, lianas, redwoods, and eucalyptus) we've been discussing in our terrestrial class. However, my absolute favorite part of the day was the wildlife we saw on the hike. We saw a Red Belly Black Snake (highly poisonous!), a Whip Snake, and a Lace Monitor (looks like a Komodo Dragon)! The snakes were both very quick! The Red Belly Black Snake was between 4 and 5 feet long, the Lace Monitor was around 4 feet long but was up in a tree and hard to tell (huge claws though!), and the Whip Snake was really slender and probably only 3 feet long. The bushwalks were about 5 miles altogether and after we went to the wildlife center at the entrance of the forest park.

The wildlife center has a lot of interesting animals that aren't in American zoos. My favorites were the sugar gliders, squolls, Bushthick-Knees, and of course the wombat. Sugar gliders are like miniature squirrels that can fly through the air. Squolls are marsupials that are like...large....well I'm not sure how to describe them but they are brown with spots down their back and tail...google it! Bushthick-Knees look similar to owls and of course the WOMBAT looks like a huge guinea pig (my favorite).

After a long day of hiking we met up with a few friends at the RE (bar) and then headed home for dinner. I'm thinking tonight will be a low key night, maybe a movie? We shall see...the nights I predict to be low key often turn out being far from chill.

Riverfire tomorrow!

Marathon Training:

Morning: egg whites; cereal

Afternoon: pb & j; granola bar; apple

Night: bow tie pasta; potato; 2 bowls of cereal

(water all day)

Workout: None (UNLESS you count about 6 miles of walking including the trek back to the apartment after the RE)