Jackie’s held a koala – peace at last!

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Thursday saw us spending a very enjoyable few hours at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary just outside Brisbane. One of the many objectives of our extended travels was that Jackie has always wanted to cuddle a koala. What the many guide books don’t actually tell you is that whilst you can have your photo taken with one pretty much anywhere, very few places actually let you hold them – probably for very good reason.

So, Thursday morning we ventured out early (intentionally this time, not because we’d still got the clocks set wrong!) and took the bus to the Sanctuary, and headed straight to the koala cuddling area. Helpful hint for anyone doing this in the future – early morning is a great time to go; koalas are nocturnal and therefore spend most of the day asleep. You also get to arrive before the coach groups and we were very fortunate to be able to spend a little longer with our koala than is usually allowed.

From England you say?
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Each koala spends just 30 minutes of its day being held and photographed and is obviously so used to posing that it looks quite naturally towards the camera. Getting Jackie to pose took a little longer …

Ours was a four year old boy called Nero and was – I have to admit – so very cute and cuddly and had a lovely nature (but then you’d have to be with all these damn tourists around). It’s also worth noting here that when planning on cuddling a koala, don’t wear a white t-shirt. Nuff said!

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Although they appear quite adorable, by contrast, watching some of the others later on you realise that they’re actually quite territorial about the particular branch that they’re sitting on/in and will happily growl at or thump another one who dares to encroach.

The sanctuary has around 130 koalas now which it has either rescued or bred and these can all be seen around the various areas – ie, new mums, kindergarten … and even the retirement home.

Apparently they sleep all day (and most of the night) because their diet of Eucalyptus contains hardly any nutrients and therefore gives them no energy. You’d have thought they’d have found something else really! Anyway, mission accomplished and one very happy wife later, we set off then to feed the kangaroos.

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There’s a huge fenced-off paddock where you can walk around with a bag of pre-purchased food and mingle with the kangaroos. They do however have an  area within this where you can’t go, which is their rest area. Contrary to our previous reports, kangaroos aren’t actually stupid, because most of them spend their time in this area so that we humans can’t get to them!!! We did actually find a few who were happy to scoff anything we had to offer – Jackie’s was particularly dainty and ate very nicely, whilst mine just slobbered all over my hand and then nicked the bag! Yuck!

When you've been chasing sheep all morning, you need to cool down!
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Aside from the main attractions, there was also an excellent sheepdog display and a farm with newborn sheep, chicks and 3-week old sheepdog puppies. The only thing to be very aware of were the (large) lizards roaming freely and who would try and get into the cafeteria or shops at a moment’s notice if the door was left open!

Today (Friday) has been spent taking the rivercat to a couple of residential suburbs around Brisbane (it has to be said there’s not a huge amount to do here) and generally exploring, plus getting ready for our next port of call tomorrow – Hayman Island and Hamilton Island – which involves a short flight, then a launch transfer. Oh, and making sure we’ve got the alarm set at the right time …