Cuddling with Koalas, Kangaroos, and Emus!

On Valentine's Day Jason and I decided to take a bus over to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. It is just outside Brisbane so it didn't take us long to get there. The Sanctuary has 130 koalas and other animals like kangaroos, emus, sheep, dingos, Tasmanian devils, snakes, echidnas, small crocodiles and Jason's favorite, wombats. I don't know why he likes wombats so much. They are really ugly.

Wombat

We got up super early and were one of the first people in the park! The biggest attraction of the park is that you can hold a koala! I was the first one in line at the koala holding station. One of the animal keepers went straight up to a sleepy koala took him off of his post and brought him over to me. She picked up the koala by its arms but it didn't seem to bother the lethargic animal because she immediately put the koala on me and he fell asleep again. He probably thought I was a tree. You could put these animals on anything as long as it has something to grab on to. They sleep for 19 hours a day! The koala I got to hold was named Goblin. He was a little heavy but very soft. I didn't want to let go!

Me and Goblin

After I got my picture taken with the koala (you have to pay for one picture then you can take as many pictures as you want with your own camera) we headed over to the kangaroo grazing area. It is massive! We walked into the fenced in area and there are emus and kangaroos that you can feed. We bought some food before we entered the gate so we could get up close and personal with the animals. Jason was interested by the Emu but I thought they were kind of scary so I stayed away from them. Jason loves the unlovable animals. We walked through the large grazing area and walked up to the kangaroos that were just lounging around. You could walk right up to them and pet and feed them! There were little kids even going around hugging the kangaroos. They didn't mind at all.

Me feeding the kangaroos

Jason and the scary emu

After feeding the Kangaroos and Emu we walked the rest of the park. We saw the "retirement home" for the koalas who are 12 + years. We saw the "bachelor pad" of the male koalas who get their own trees. We saw feeding time with the crocodiles! They eat rats whole. They weren't very big crocodiles but big enough for me not to want to go near them. We saw snakes and crazy crazy birds! One in particular, the kookaburras! The laughing kookaburras. One of them had a lizard in its mouth for the whole hour we were walking through the park. He must have been showing it off. They were making so much noise I decided to take a video. Enjoy!

And to those of you who already asked, yes I am working on getting a koala shipped to the US for all to cuddle with! They are such sweet creatures!

He is going to have the worst pins and needles when he wakes up...