Melissa Chang made me do it.
I’m talking about eating Vegemite, an Australian food spread made from yeast extract. It’s served everywhere here and used in sandwiches, on toast, even as a filling in pastries.
Trust me, it’s not appealing.
But since we were in Brisbane, we had to try it.
Here’s our verdict:
There weren’t a lot of things I had to do while in Brisbane.
Sure, I wanted to try the local cuisine and walk across Story Bridge. But the one thing I was most excited about — and it wasn’t eating Vegemite — was seeing the Australian wildlife, particularly the koalas and kangaroos.
So we headed to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane, the world’s first and largest koala sanctuary, with more 130 koalas and other animals, to up close and personal with the country’s iconic animals.
I couldn’t wait!
My goal: to cuddle a koala.
Here’s what our day trip to the sanctuary — and what we ate after — looked like:
All I wanted to do on this trip was cuddle a koala — and it was actually in our itinerary on Friday. Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary is the world's first and largest koala sanctuary with more than 130 koalas. And it's one of the only places that allows you to handle these marsupials. We're so there!
Follow my adventures in Brisbane on Twitter at @thedaiydish and on Instagram at @catherinetoth.
We got a late start, but it didn’t matter.
Brisbane wasn’t waiting for us, but it still had room for stragglers.
We started walking from our hotel — we’re staying at the Sofitel Brisbane — toward Queen Street Mall, a few blocks away.
We were heading to the South Bank Parklands, an area on the southern shore of the Brisbane River that has parks, grassy areas, the Wheel of Brisbane and — get this — beaches.
About 11 million people visit South Bank Parklands each year, and it’s easy to see why. There are restaurants and shops and ice cream carts everywhere. It’s a walkable, runable, bikeable stretch, too, and folks were out and about all afternoon.
We were mostly interested in the inner-city beaches, which were not what we had expected. (Video on this coming soon.) It was more like a hotel pool — with sand. Strange.
Now we’re on our way to Chinatown for some dim sum and then taking a river taxi back to South Bank for dinner.
Whenever I find Internet, I’ll post more photos. Thanks for being patient!
When I was a kid, I had a map of the world taped to my bedroom wall.
And often, I would scan the mysterious continent-country of Australia.
I learned back then it was a penal colony, where Brits had sent their prisoners. Never mind there was already an indigenous population and, really, the British couldn’t technically claim they “discovered” it. But I digress.
This island continent is huge, with a land mass of about 3 million square feet. It’s the world’s smallest continent but the sixth largest country by total area. And everyone there — all 22.6 million of them — has an accent that I think is cool.
Australia has always been on my must-see list and, despite direct flights to Sydney, its capital, I’ve never been there.
Until now.
Tomorrow I’ll be joining the media group heading to Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, on the inaugural flight from Honolulu on Hawaiian Airlines. (And yes, Melissa Chang will be my roomie again!)
To be honest, I don’t know much about Brisbane. In fact, when I was invited to go, I had to Google it to find out where on the continent it was.
Turns out, Brisbane is on the southeastern corner of Queensland, centered along the Brisbane River. The city is on a low-lying floodplain and has seen its share of massive flooding, even as recently as last year.
But that’s all I’ve got.
So I’m spending most of today researching this fascinating city — and figuring out what we should do! — and packing for our five-day adventure Down Under.
The upside: it’s summer there. I won’t need to buy a parka!
If you’ve got advice for us, post it here. We need all the help we can get!
Follow my adventures in Brisbane on Twitter @thedailydish and on Instagram @catherinetoth.
Born and raised on O‘ahu, Catherine Toth Fox has been chronicling her adventures in her blog, The Cat Dish (www.thecatdish.com), for more than a decade. She worked as a newspaper reporter in Hawai‘i for 10 years and has freelanced — in between teaching journalism, hitting the surf and eating everything in sight — for national and local print and online publications.
In November 2015, she ditched the full-time freelance life to become the food and dining editor at HONOLULU Magazine, where she would eat even more often — but got paid for it! She’s now the editor of HAWAIʻI Magazine, a Honolulu-based travel publication. So can eat and travel while earning a regular paycheck!
Her assignments and travel blogs have taken her around the world — lounging in an outdoor onsen in Fukushima, Japan during a snowfall; cuddling koalas in Brisbane, Australia; sampling macarons in Paris; planting native trees in Hakalau on the Big Island; hiking a volcano in Costa Rica; eating stroopwafel at a street market in Amsterdam; surfing at Cloud Break in Tavarua, Fiji (above); eating coagulated pig blood at a night market in Taipei City; and snorkeling in the pristine waters off the private island of Ni‘ihau.
Sampling the street food and bubble tea in Taipei, Taiwan
Diving off O‘ahu’s southeastern coast
You can find her work in such publications as Alaska Airlines Magazine, AOL Travel, AAA Journeys, Forbes Travel Guide, Fodor’s Travel Guide, Modern Luxury Hawai‘i, HAWAI‘I Magazine, HONOLULU, and Hawai‘i Business.
She earned her master’s degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 1999, focusing on magazine writing and publishing. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, graduating with distinction in 1996.
Catherine currently lives Honolulu with her aquaculture husband, #BabyFox, their three dogs — Sunny, Indy and Opae, affectionately known as the #ratterpack — three hens, and an extensive collection of surfboards.
Email her anytime at [email protected].
