On our first day in Brisbane, we traveled to The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. We had seen heaps of wildlife on the trip, but had yet to see koalas and clearly were intriuged by an ad in the local paper that said, “Come cuddle koalas and feed kangaroos.” I wasn't sure exactly how the whole cuddling thing would work... I mean cuddling isn't something you just do with a stranger much less a koala! But we had to go and see what it was all about.
The place had tons of animals. Not sure if you can call them “wildlife” because most of them were born in captivity. Fortunately, that means that they live longer and get treated like kings. People pay them to give them hugs and feed them. Not a bad life. We saw many breeds of kangaroos, dingoes, wombats, lizards, frogs, turtles, tons of birds, the Tasmanian devil was on vacation, and of course koalas. The place is FULL of koalas!!! Not just five or ten, but lots.. I'm not even sure how many.. but they were all over the place. They kinda look like little bears with big fuzzy ears and inquisitive eyes... but kinda act like monkeys... walking around, climbing, swinging. After, munching away on eucalyptus leaves, they place themselves in these ball positions and balance themselves between branches as they sleep. The funniest thing is when the baby koalas are on there mothers backs running around and climbing. Looked like fun. Laura and I tried it for a bit. I had fun, but I think Laura's back might have been a little sore from lugging me around.
We decided to pay fifteen dollars to cuddle a koala and get a photo. Kinda pricey, but it went to building more shelters for koalas. I was introduced to a koala named Conrad. He was a pleasant fellow with a very bad body odor problem. Conrad noticed that I was a bit uncomfortable with his smell and looked over at his handler. She explained that it was a very normal smell and that male koalas tend to smell more than the females. I got accustomed to his odor and gave an affirming look telling him that we have the same problem with our species as well. He gave me a grin and put his head on my shoulder.
AWWW!
Naptime.
Most Kangaroos ate right out of our hands. This one I had to turn the charm on.
good feed.
"I'm an Emu... i think... wait what... who are you?"
Wombats rule.
"Watchooo lookin at?"
Laura and Lorikeets.
"yummmy tourists."This croc must have been having a good dream.
it's a hard life. 
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