We woke up early to get packed have some breakfast and get to the flamenco cafe. We needed to find a place to stay for the night and I wanted to go to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary to see Koala's up close and to hug one! Paul found us a hostel to stay in, we called and they had availability for shared rooms and private rooms so we thought we would try a shared room since it was cheaper and we could tough it out for a night or two. It was great we found a place to stay, however it was a few blocks from the train station, so we had to walk back the way we came the previous day, at least we knew the way! I was rested so I could keep up with Paul and our walk took half the time, but the rain came back and hit us again. We found our hostel which was located on hostel row, there were six hostels in a row and they all seemed to be over flowing with 18 yr olds dressing in awful 80's clothes. Our's was no better, we followed the loud music to reception and got the low down on the place, it was clean, but also overrun with 18yr olds acting like fools. Thank goodness Paul could read my mind and we booked a private room! This was the largest hostel I have ever stayed in, 3 floors of rooms, a pool, bar, cafe, ect. the kitchen was large but with so many people it was hard to find space. Our room was nice and the bed was comfortable, we threw our bags in the room, ate some lunch, and then set out to find the bus that would take us to the Koala's.
We waited at the bus stop about 10min after the bus should have arrived, finally another bus stopped and the driver told us that it was a public holiday (funny i thought that was yesterday) and our bus was leaving from another street (just one over) he did not tell us the time so we moved with a quickness. We found our knew bus and hopped on, the ride was very jerky I think our driver was very distracted or he just liked to slam on the brakes a lot.
We arrived at Lone Pine around 3pm, I was a little stressed because they close at 5pm but our bus comes at 4:30pm and I wanted to make sure we saw everything. Following the path in we spotted big lizards just laying on the rocks, and scrub turkeys (they are everywhere) walking around like they owned the place, and just ahead was the Koala's! They kept the Koala's out in the open, they were not behind glass or cages, there was a wall about waist high to keep guests backhand trees under little canopies in the middle and the Koala's in them! They had a few different area's the kindergarden with super little and super cute babies, a retirement home for the more mature Koala's, the bachelor pad, and the family area! We walked up to a little amphitheater at the end of a Koala presentation and the keeper was going to grab a Koala so people could pet him on the back. I quickly knocked a few kids out of he way and drug Paul behind me to the front, only one family was standing in my way, no problem they would only be a minute…the minute never ended, the stupid dad had to take the picture of each on of his family members petting the Koala, but each picture they were all petting him at the same time so he held up the line taking 5 of the same freak'n picture. I had enough so I joined the family and started petting the Koala, he was not happy and said excuse me but I ignored him and pulled Paul in to give the Koala a pet too, the guy is lucky he didn't get chin checked blocking me out when there is a Koala to pet.
Feeling so lucky to have pet a Koala we headed toward the Kangaroo enclosure. It was a large field that we entered through a gate, I thought it was a bit excessive to keep the roo's in, but as I turned I saw a Emu to close for comfort, great all I needed was to have giant birds walking around the field as well. It is always exciting to see an animal close up and in your personal space (excluding snakes, grizzly bears and for me any kind of birds) we all know what a Kangaroo looks like but to have them all around you is really cool. These were gray roe's medium sized, that when they stood up tall on their hind legs they quickly get tall and intimidating. Some people were feeding them some food you could buy and the roe's ate it right out of there hands. We did not have food but Paul tricked a young roo into letting us get close by feeding him the grass that he pulled from the ground. This little one let us pet him for a while and liked when Paul scathed behind his ears he was so cute! There was a couple different kinds of Kangaroo's so we walked to see the other ones, that were actually separated from us visitors. They were the red kangaroo's which are the largest, they can stand up to 6.5 feet tall and can jump very high and pack a strong kick with those hind legs, these kanga's live in the hottest part of the outback and can live without much water. They had a wall with kangaroo heights on it so you could see how a person's height measured up to all the Kanga's and wallaby's, I was only taller than two wallabies the Kanga's owned me. Walking around the field we came by some smaller wallabies that were dark and had some yellow markings, they were shy compared to the grey kanga's and while we could get close they did not let you pet them, they hopped off which was fun to watch. In the field area was an enclosure that was open just waist high to keep us out, it was home to two wombats, the wombats were larger than I expected them to be and were built like a brick s@$% house! They had signs posted letting people know not to lean over and pet them since they will bite and by the looks of it they would probably bite your fingers off. They had the cutest sleepy looking faces!
Out of the Kangaroo field we watched more Koala's, saw some two fresh water crocks "freshies" and three lizards including the largest one in Aussie. I would have taken a ton of pictures, but the battery died and we were both very upset since not everyday we could get so close to these exotic animals. We moved fast through the lizards, they are cool to see but they just sun themselves on rocks most of the day so there is no need to linger. We came across a high fenced off area with dense foliage it was home to the Cassowary, these birds look like they could be dinosaurs, they are shorter than an ostrich have black feathers a bright blue neck, bright red and yellow gobbler thing and a large plate that stands straight up from there head at least six inches high, but there feet are disproportionally large and they have been known to attach with there feet! They are crazy looking, I could not imagine running into one of those in the wild, birds are freaky.
Next we made our way to the platypus building, this is what Paul was most excited to see and we entered the dark building and looked for the goofy looking thing. It was set up like an aquarium most of the viewing showed under water but we could not see it. Finally something caught my eye hiding behind a log, all we could see was a small tail and little feet. We waited for him to move from behind the log after about 5min he dove down so we could see him. He was much smaller and stubbier than either of us thought and he was so cute. He swam around for a bit and Paul got the last two pics out of our battery but since it was out of juice we could not get the primo shots we had wanted. He was still fun to watch, and the strangest animal I have ever seen.
We passed some more Koala's and beautiful birds including my favorite laughing Kookaburra's, it was so funny because the one in the cage started making calls and soon we noticed there were several wild ones that had flown in and were talking back to him! We watched some dingos, and made our way to the tasmanian devils. Again every animal I think is going to be small is larger than I expected, and this is true with the devils as well. They had large heads and bodies like small pigs, we watched them as they were being feed some mince (raw ground meat) they were going crazy over it and wrestling with eachother.
We saw everything the park had to offer except the Echidna ( it is nocturnal and can only be seen early morning or late night) but Paul did see it sleeping in a hollow log. All we could make out was it's spiny outline, but it was better than nothing. We did make a quick pass through the snake house, I felt it was important to know what snake was what. I was nuts looking at the worlds #1 and #2 most venomous land snakes and lucky for us they live in the Queensland state. The Taipan and the King brown, yuck they gave me the hibie jeebyz's.
It was a full day and we came back to the hostel and grabbed a few beers and watched all the awkward kids try and impress one another, while we felt like the old couple in the corner that they were making fun of! The hostel was really quiet during the day and it seemed half of the place did not wake up until 2pm, seems quite a few of the kids especially in this hostel are here to party hard and not quite as interested in the sights.
No comments:
Post a Comment