Koala Cuddling

Today we went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, via river cruise.  This is the entire reason I came to Brisbane, because I knew that here I would be for sure able to cuddle a koala.  Yep, let’s cut right to the good stuff.

Animals I got to touch:

Koala!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A hand-raised and trained dingo puppy.  Very soft.

Emu, he felt like straw, except for that stuff on top of his head, which felt like hair.

Kangaroo!!!  Unbelievably soft.

Animals I got to see but not touch:

Flying Fox (bats).  I am a big bat fan, got a huge kick of them, especially later when they stared to wake up.

Tasmanian Devil.  His buddy was running laps around the enclosure, but a sleeping animal is easier to photograph.

Sleepy wombats, much bigger than I expected, probably the size of a medium dog.

Kookaburra, and lots of other birds I'd never seen before.

This baby koala hanging onto mom.

More baby kola, because can you ever have enough?  Look at those ears!

This place was chock full o’ koalas!  I mean, I know it’s in the name, but we didn’t realize they had over 130!  First thing I did was head to the koala cuddling picture zone, where I got to hold one named Major. He was much heavier than I was expecting, and also not as soft!  We found out later that there are two types, northern and southern koalas, and the southern ones have longer fur (and are presumably softer).  Major felt a lot like a sheep.

How cute is this guy?  Apparently that's comfortable.

Second stop was the kangaroo feeding area.  It was actually hard to find one to feed, they were all having nap time and weren’t really interested in what we were doing.  This turned out to be a good thing, because we could pet them as much as we wanted with no fuss.  They were so soft!!!!  We finally found some that wanted a nibble, and it felt a little funny, like they were scooping the food up with their teeth.  It didn’t hurt at all, but you could definitely feel teeth.  Then they sat and chewed very slowly, like a llama if you’ve ever seen one of those eat.

The other highlight was definitely the platypus.  He’s hard to photograph, he’s really fast!  But here’s a short video:

Who wants platypus kisses?  I do!  But I guess I'll just have to settle for this statue.

The cruise along the river was also a treat in itself, we got to peek in the back yard of some very fancy river side homes.  I definitely suggest this trip if you ever come to Brisbane!

Aren't we the cutest?