Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

The Mirmar

On the Brisbane River

We had a really fun day.  It started off with breakfast at the Pancake House again.  We could go there every day.  Then we went to the boat launch to get on board the Mirmar.  You can take this cruise on the Brisbane River up to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.  They had a commentary for the first part of the cruise.  It was interesting to learn about Brisbane, the river, the animals, and the flood of 2011. 

Once at the zoo, we headed to the koala photo area.  We wanted to make sure we got to hold one.  The koala was a girl. She was a little heavy.  You held your hands flat in front of your stomach.  The koala sat on them.  Then its arms were wrapped around your arms.  We were its "tree."  Dagan went first, then Sydney, and then me.  After the official photo, we were able to take our own pictures.  They are a lot softer than you might think.

View of part of the zoo

One of the koalas

After we had our pictures taken, we wandered the sanctuary.  It wasn't a big zoo, but it was in a really neat setting.  The cages were placed between the trees and paths were added accordingly.  There were tons of Koalas.  We had never seen so many.  They said they have 130.  They had them in retirement, bachelor, Kindergarten, Moms n babies, the Cubby Hole, and more open aired cages.  They were awake and very mobile.  It was fun to see. 

Tasmanian Devil

Feeding a red kangaroo

We also saw a platypus (no picture unfortunately), wombats, dingoes, many birds, a Tasmanian Devil, a perentie (largest lizard in Australia), more kangaroos, and many other animals.  We fed red and gray kangaroos and wallabies.  It was a great day.  It would have been nice if Adam could have joined us, but someone has to work.

a perentie