Great Barrier Reef cruise pt 1

Hello all!  Sorry for the big gap in posts, I'm sure you've been missing them desperately.  Lance and I are going to try and crank them out over the next couple days because we need to get ready for our last several weeks in New Zealand.  We will have plenty of sad, sappy posts for the end of it all.

Over Easter we did a cruise up the Australian coast along the Great Barrier Reef.  The Great Barrier was on my bucket list when we moved over here, but I wasn't sure if that would have to be saved for a different vacation later in life.  New Zealand has plenty of offer to fill up two years without throwing in another huge country as well.

I just spent the last two hours typing up a clever post with pictures, then BAM!  The browser and I had a disagreement and all the work is gone.  Now I'm annoyed and lazy so you are just getting the basics and pictures.

We flew into Brisbane for the first two days before our cruise departed.  We went with P&O's Great Barrier Discovery route.
Day 1: at sea
Day 2: Airlie Beach
Day 3: Cairns (pronounced like an Aussie hybrid of 'keens' and 'kens')
Day 4: Port Douglas
Day 5: Willis Island (just a drive by basically)
Day 6: at sea
Day 7: arrive Brisbane

In Brisbane we went to Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo, which was awesome.  We got to pet kangaroos, wallabies, and koalas!  Then we saw his wife and children in the crocodile show.  The crocodiles were impressive, although we were even more thrilled by the exotic birds they had fly in and around the audience, timed to music.  We had broad smiles on all our faces the whole time.  Think the Blue Angels on the 4th of July, but with birds.

Two points if you can name this bird.  Hint- there's a song about it.  Lance did not get two points.

Hi, Matty.

Searching for lemurs

We could have watched this tiger pace back and forth in front of us all day.  He finally plopped down in front of James who was thrilled.

  

In the evenings we went to South Bank, which is a recently redone neighborhood on the river.  The city is working hard to make it an appealing area and in my opinion they succeeded.  We really enjoyed Brisbane.  Very family friendly and chill.  South Bank had restaurants, parks, playgrounds, a night craft market, street performers, and a huge swimming area with fountains, a faux beach, and pools.  We definitely did not intend to go swimming in our dinner clothes, but James had other plans.  He had a change of clothes.  I did not.

PS Australia has 'fake Target'.  Somehow not associated with USA Target in any way but same design, font, and logo.  How is this legal?  I bought my first new item of clothing in a year and it was glorious.  NZ is expensive!