9.10.2012

koalas and kangaroos and emus... oh my!

we had some really great times in brisbane, and the lone pine koala sanctuary was no exception.  i have now been to three koala holding wildlife parks, but this one is by far my favorite.  and that is for one reason and one reason alone - KANGAROOS!

but let's not get ahead of ourselves.  when we first walked into the park, there was a cage full of what they call flying foxes.  i call them bats!  HUGE bats... this guy is about the size of a basketball.


then came the super duper sweet koalas.  i just cannot get enough of these guys.



and pam and dad had their opportunity to hold one of these darlings.  (i got to hold one, too, but no photos since i didn't pay to have one taken... i already have a few.)


then we headed over to the kangaroo area.  we walk in and we see one kangaroo and a couple of emus.  jim and i have seen some emus in the wild at the mine so it was pretty exciting to see them a little closer up.  these particular emus liked to get a little too close, though.  the picture below is no joke.  they were literally that close.  

STORY TIME:  i soon figured out why the emus got so close to you.  you see, back at the wildlife park cafe we bought a bag of kangaroo food to feed the kangaroos.  apparently, the emus know these bags of food and they know them well.  i had the bag in my hand and the emus started coming after me.  not knowing why it was coming after me i, obviously, ran away (wouldn't you??  look at that FACE!).  well, my dad (whom i trust very well) told me not to show my fear and to just act like i don't care.  so, the next time i had the food out the same thing happened, but i was determined not to show my fear.  i stood there until it was RIGHT next to me and the next thing i know the emu pecks the bag of food right out of my hand!!!  i could have poo'd my pants.  i threw everything up in the air and ran.  we all had a good laugh after that.  last time i trust you, dad...  ;).

here is the singular kangaroo we saw.

it was so sweet as it ate what was left of the food out of our hands!


WARNING!  emu coming in for the taking... of course, it didn't bother my dad.  his philosophy actually worked for him.




i was pretty surprised that there was only one kangaroo hanging around so we decided to keep walking.  holy smokes!  there were probably near 100 kangaroos!!

all of them just as tame as the next.  they didn't care at all if you pet them!

how great is this photo?  so cute!

and then... AND THEN... pam and i came upon a mama kangaroo with her joey!  at first, we didn't know what those appenditures were.  after all, in all of the pictures of kangaroos with joeys, the joey is usually head first out of the pocket, not feet first.

but THEN, out popped the head!  absolutely fabulous and a once in a lifetime opportunity to see something like this in real life.


and then his head went back in.  we think he was nursing.

then mama got up and started hoping around.  it was so cool.

we also saw a cute little wombat.

and TAZ!!  a tasmanian devil...

we all had such a great time and it was definitely a highlight of the trip, at least for me.  

afterwards, we headed back into the city to have lunch with connie before we left for the airport to head back to mackay.  

or so we thought we were heading back to mackay.  we got to the airport and waited for around 3 hours when they canceled our flight due to fog in mackay.  so, thank goodness for connie and jess, we hopped back in the car and went back to connie and pat's place to hang out with them for another evening!  they told us to come back any time... we just didn't think it would be so soon.  but, we enjoyed yet another night in brisbane and flew back to mackay the next morning.   we had a wonderful time in brisbane!

No comments:

Post a Comment