Cuddling Koalas =D

What an awesome day!

Sarah, a couple of her flatmates, and I all went to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary this morning! We caught the bus into town, switched buses, and eventually arrived, ready for a fun filled day!



After we first entered the sanctuary, there are a bunch of bird on display. Such as -

Lorikeets:


A pink cockatoo:


And Kookaburras:


There were also a bunch of bats, pretty big ones too, but they did not photograph so well.

Then we saw the red-legged pandemelons (which are a kind of wallaby):


And the dingoes!




At this point, we went to go see the Birds of Prey show, out on one of the fields. It was pretty neat, even though the 2 of the birds did not cooperate and do what they were supposed to (which made the show pretty funny)

A white-bellied sea eagle:


A barking owl:


A barn owl:


And a wedge tailed eagle (also known as the eaglehawk):


After the show, we stopped in the barn to pet some mini horses:


And the baby cow:


After that, we took a short break for lunch, and then headed back to the field for the sheep herding show. Jill, a border collie, was the star of the show:




Although she did get some help from this kelpie:


Afterwards, we continued on to the kangaroo preserve. Over 130 kangaroos, and most of them sleeping! =D







We missed the Kangaroo presentation at 1:45pm, but made it in time for the Koala Show at 2pm. And of course afterwards, we had to cuddle them:

This guy is Patches, and he was a bit heavier than I expected, but very soft. (And a little smelly!). Its true, their claws are sharp, because he was digging them into my shoulder trying to hold on to me, even though I was holding him.

I learned that it is not true that all koalas are mean - some have a nice temperament, and after training, they can get used to be held and cuddled. The sanctuary has over 130 koalas, and about 50 of them are used for cuddling. (They even have a schedule - they work for 30 minutes two days in a row, and on the third day, they get the day off. Since they spend 18-20 hours a day sleeping, this seems like a pretty nice life!)

After the koalas, we went and saw the wombat, who was eating:


And the lorikeet feeding, where they were hundreds of squawking birds:


Then we saw a crocodile:


And we passed by the dingoes again, eating this time (and not babies, just regular dog food it looked like)


And that was it!



There was supposed to be a Tasmanian Devil on display, that I was hoping to see, but he wasn't available, according to the sign. And there were supposed to be some echidnas, but I couldn't find them in the cage.

Overall, Lone Pine makes a very good koala (and even kangaroo) sanctuary. They take care of a lot of koalas, and are involved in research and habitat preservation. But as a zoo, I found the enclosures for the rest of the animals to be small, and pretty mundane.

I did have a great time though! And everyone is saying that Australia Zoo is about 100 times better, so I can't wait for that!

The Gold Coast!

Today, Anne and Ray picked Marcus (a peace scholar) and me up, and took us down to the Gold Coast. It was about an hour drive south, and the sky was a little gray, but not too bad.

We first stopped at Salt Village, an upscale resort with a nice beach.






And since it was Easter, there were some people building sand sculptures:


We stayed there, and then traveled northward a bit. We stopped for morning tea and a muffin while it rained, and then went to the next beach along the coast.



The weather had cleared up, and now the beach looked like this:






I learned that the tides drag a lot of sand from the beach, so there are places along the coast where there are pumps that actually pump the sand back into place, which I think is a really good idea. You can kinda see it in the distance in this picture:


We went to the Point Danger Lookout, for some nice views, and eventually stopped at the beach at Burleigh Heads.





We continued along our way up to Broadbeach, where Marcus went for a swim, and I tried out the water. It was cold!!!! I couldn't believe how cold it was! The weather was maybe 80 degrees, so I was expecting the water to be very similar to how it is back in Miami. Not a chance! So I didn't go in very far, but I enjoyed the beach anyways!

We had lunch in a beachside cafe with a nice view:




Eventually, we continued north, up through Surfer's Paradise, and then to Main Beach.


It was a gorgeous day, and I think we all had a great time, and so were pretty tired by then end.



I am definitely going to have to get back to the Gold Coast and do some surfing =)

Yummy food with friends!

Saturday night, my food friend Sarah invited me over for an authentic Chinese-food dinner at her flat.

Her and her flatmates cooked a ton of food! We had a dish of pork, one of chicken, one of fish, one of prawns, some soup, and some salad. And lots of rice!




And it was all very delicious! She has promised me that she will teach me how to cook Chinese food before the year is over and I told her that I would teach her something American, though I am not sure what yet ^_^

Sarah and I:


Group photo:

Thats Jenny, Regina, me and Richard along the bottom.

The Week Until Now...

was predominantly uneventful. I attended classes, and managed to get registered for a couple economics experiments where I made some money. yays!

I caught the shuttle and wandered around the Mt. Gravatt campus on Monday for a while in the rain.

And on Tuesday, I went to Sunnybank Plaza and did some grocery shopping, and bought some school supplies finally (like a binder, and some dividers, scotch tape, and scissors.)

This morning, I had another economics experiment at 10am, but I found out that they had canceled it because they were short of participants. (I still made 10$ just for showing up, woot!)

Since my class today was at the Royal Children's Hospital in the city, I decided to go a little early to explore. It was still raining (and I thought Brisy was in a drought!) but it wasn't too bad.

I stopped by the CBD library first, and managed to find one book that I was specifically looking for, and one book that was a complete surprise. Apparently, one of my favorite authors (Donaldson) wrote another couple of books to conclude a series (that was supposedly already finished). So I picked up this compilation and was very excited!

Afterwards, I did a little shopping, and bought an Australia key chain (I needed something more than a safety pin to hold my keys!) and some post cards to mail back home. Then I wandered across the bridge:







There was a Nepalese temple-like structure, where some kids where filming some kind of marshal arts video:


And then you can walk through the "rainforest walkway":




Continuing on is this beautiful pathway:

which has bougainvilleas in bloom lining the way

If you keep walking, you get to the beach, where they created a man-made beach right alongside the river. Very neat, and people were still hanging out there even though the weather wasn't so great.







Eventually, I started walking back towards the busway,




and ran into some local wildlife:


I took a new bus to the Royal Children's Hospital, with plenty of time to spare, and saw this guy outside:


And this was the view from the lecture room: