Friday 1 August 2014

Australia: koalas and kangaroos

I love koalas.  I didn't really have a view on koalas before we went to Australia but now I love them.  They're obviously cute, and they just make me giggle with their hangingaroundness and general approach to life.  This will not be the last holiday post to feature koalas.

Back in Brisbane we went with the Taylors to Lone Pine koala sanctuary, which is more than just koalas really, with all sorts of Australian creatures, some of which are featured below.  As well as this there were playpusses which were very cool and a big hit with the girls.  There were three dingoes (two yellow dog dingoes, and one white one), red kangaroos, lizards, snakes, spiders, etc.  All of the things on this sign too:


Here's a koala.  See what I mean?  Hanging around.


Turtles.  We've seen turtles before, and indeed saw some just swimming about in the lagoon in Sangdate.  But these turtles are in a turtle stack.  And until a second before the shutter clicked, it was a triple trutle stack.  You can see the splash of the third turtle.  Apparently they stack quite often to get prime basking space.  Awesome.


Here's one of the most active koalas we saw all holiday.  I mean, it's not actually moving, but it looks like it might, at any moment.


A snake!  Proud of Marisca for giving it a stroke.


This is the infamous koala.  If you ask Marisca what she happened on her holiday, her stock answer for a while was that she went on lots of aeroplanes, and that a koala pooed on her.  This is the pooing koala, posing for a photo, which Risky just wasn't very sure about.  We went back later, as you'll see at the bottom. of the post.


We had a lot of fun feeding the grey kangaroos.There were lots of them just hopping around a big hillside, most of them getting a good feeding from the visitors, including our girls.  Again, Marisca enjoyed getting close and having a stroke, as long as they were facing the other way.  She absolutely loved them, just maintained a certain nervousness when they got too close.  If I came across a few dozen big red kangaroo the size of me I'd have felt the same.  Oh, we also saw a joey in a pouch which was fun.





And of course, the best and most exciting responses from the children all day was in the farm park bit, with the pigs, chicks, horses, and guinea pigs that we see all the time at home.  Although they caused the excitement at the time, the memories that Risky has are of the platypus, koala, dingoes, and kangaroos.  



Australian wildlife for the win.


Oh, I haven't mentioned Tom.  He was there, on someone's back for most of the time.  He also enjoys the "Walas"

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