Koalas and Kangaroos

Wednesday November 16

Today is our third day in Brisbane and Julia and I spent most of our day at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary which is about 40 minutes outside of the city center. Once again, the two of us made the sweltering walk to the bus stop on Adelaide Street and took bus 445 all the way to Lone Pine. Once we got our tickets, we entered to find a forest full of amazing Australian animals.

BATS!

We first saw tropical rainbow birds, and then HUGE bats. Since it was during the day, they were all dangling upside down rolled up in their wings, asleep. They were quite cute and rather large. We then saw this big white bird, which I believe is some kind of cockatiel. This bird greeted us with “Hello!” and then squaked at us loudly but as we turned around and started walking we heard, “Byebye!”

We then stumbled upon koalas, everywhere. All of them were fast asleep, in awkward positions. Some looked like they were gripping branches for their lives and others were in a peaceful meditative position, with both arms out. We learned later on that koala’s have two opposable thumbs instead of one so they have impeccable grip. We also learned that because they only eat eucalyptus leaves, which is only 5% sugar and carbohydrates. Koalas do not have much energy and must sleep for most of the day, 18 to 20 hours. The other 4-6 hours are used to consume the 500 grams of eucalyptus leaves they eat in a day. This is approximately two shopping bags stuff full of leaves.

We continued walking around the sanctuary looking at the possums and wild lizards that ran everywhere. We then went to see and feed the kangaroos. However, we first encountered an emu. I did not know what they were at first since it looked a lot like a miniature moa. It let us get really close to it and both Julia and I had pictures with it.

Then with our little brown bags full of kangaroo food, we went to seek out the kangaroos. The first kangaroo we saw was a joey. Julia bent down with a hand full of food but the joey did not eat it. I wonder if it had only recently started eating food since it took it quite a while before it figured out that it could eat what was in Julia’s hand. The male kangaroos definitely knew it was food though, as multiples of them came hopping to Julia and eating out of her hand and her bag. I fed the little joey, and a few of the female ones, but once the males started coming over I just held out the entire bag and soon I had no food left. It was okay though because I just spent the rest of the time petting them.

After the kangaroos we went to cuddle the koalas and have our picture taken. The koala we held was named Utopia and she was only three years old. I always thought that koalas were very compact and would weigh a lot but Utopia was surprisingly light. She was so soft I wanted to keep on holding her.

At 1:00pm we went to go see the Bird of Prey presentation. They presented from the smallest to largest bird. There were even two owls! We watched these majestic birds fly from one keeper to another, eating the squishy animal guts out of each person’s hands. Each of the barking owls got a mouse at the end of the show and after chewing up the head a little they each swallowed the mouse whole. *the birds immediately underneath are not birds of prey.

 

Dingo!

After the birds of prey show we walked around looking at the animals. We saw dingoes and thought it was funny that they wore collars and were fed dog food. They really look just like dogs though. The one that we saw looked a lot like Blue, Ellie’s orange Blue Heeler dog. It is also funny that all the dingoes at the sanctuary go to doggie school and have certificates.

bird of prey

At 2:00pm we went to the Koala show and learned all about koalas. A koalas gestation period is only 33-35 days, and then they give birth to a little pink thing the size of a thumb nail and that lives in their pouch for the next eight months or so. The most common and most lethal disease that koalas get is Chlamydia, which we were told is a different kind than the human type. Koalas are also great swimmers and have different markings to help them camouflage. We also learned that all the people working at Lone Pine have to know each and every one of the koalas by name. There are 130 koalas.

Our next stop was the platypus house, were we saw the one and only platypus swim around and eat worms. I always thought platypuses were really big but they are actually quite small, only 1.8kg (~3.5 pounds). They are rather pudgy and very cute and also very interesting. They are both a land and water mammal that lays eggs, produces milk, and also has venomous feet. Also, platypuses are not purple. I am not sure why cartoons and Beanie Babies and movies all portray platypuses as purple. Here is a video of the platypus, since it was too dark and it swam too fast for pictures.

After the platypus feeding we headed to the Tasmanian Devil cage where we saw two female devils. They were also very cute but when the food was thrown into the cage they both started chasing each other and making rather scary growling noises.

Before heading back to the bus stop we also found some wombats. All the pictures of wombats I’ve seen have been these cute little furry things that looked a little like a bear. Wombats are actually 1.) huge 2.) kind of smelly 3.) not all the cute and kind of look like wild boar. Nevertheless, they were interesting to see.

Strangely enough the only animal we did not see during the entire day was and echidna. I’m sure they were there and we probably passed its cage a bunch of times but I guess it was just too hot for them to come out and say “Hi”… or we could have just missed them…

Upon arriving back in center city Julia and I roamed around a little more. McDonalds is even more expensive here than it is in New Zealand and the US. Well I guess some things were cheaper, but most were more expensive. I also had my first Pie Face pie. It was chicken and mushroom.

We also went into the Reject Store. I’m not sure why it was called that other than that everything inside was extremely cheap. I got four bottles of travel shampoo and conditioner and one bottle of travel soap for $5. All of that plus the stuff I managed to bring over from NZ will probably last me until I get back to the US. It's also nice that they are all 100ml or less so they can make it back to NZ with me.

In other news, Julia and I have gone a little crazy with delicious yogurt (NZ/AUS spelling: yoghurt) Each of us have both eaten one of those jugs already in the last two and a half days and today we have another jug of lovely plain yogurt. We are happy, our digestive systems are happy, our meals are happy meals, and the yogurt company is probably happy too. WIN.