Koala Sanctuary

Having seen enough of giant spiders lurking everywhere we went, we decided to visit the Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane and see some cute and furry animals.  It was completely inundated during the flood and has just reopened.  It is not completely functional again, but all of the animals are back in their shelters and they seem to be pretty relaxed about the on-going repairs.

There were a few lizards, snakes and crocodiles, but we were there for the cute factor.  We started out in a paddock with what we thought was one emu and a couple of kangaroos.  There were actually about 10 emus and 100 or more kangaroos and wallabys.

Lounging Kangaroo

Thoughtful Wallaby

The kangaroos were in large groups, mostly gathered in shady spots under trees.  We saw a couple of wallabys hopping around but the kangaroos were all in full lounging mode.  Only one was moving around and that was just to get food.  She had a pretty sweet deal going.  She would stand on her hind legs and pose for a picture, then a tourist would give her a handful of food.  Good times for the kangaroo!

Posing Kangaroo

We also saw wombats, a tasmanian devil and a golden possum, all sleeping in little tunnels in their enclosures, birds of prey, a platypus and dingos.   And, of course, koalas.  Many, many koalas, all sleeping in their trees.  We only saw one that was making any kind of movement at all, and we think he was just after a new place to sleep. 

Napping koala

There were 6 or 7 different koala enclosures for the different groups and ages of koalas, there was even one called a retirement home!  We suppose the older koalas need a quiet place to sleep and get away from all of those other younger koalas...who are also sleeping. 

For all of these cute and cuddly guys that we saw, the coolest animals were the bats!  The night skies over Brisbane are teeming with bats.  They are very large and graceful and swoop all around tree tops and buildings.  Last night, after seeing bats up close at the zoo, we actually saw two bats landing in the trees and hang upside down from the low hanging branches.  Hopefully they were snacking on the big, gross spiders that live there.