Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

Guess where I went! Go on, guess.

Still no clue? The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, goofs! It’s the world’s first and largest koala sanctuary, in case you didn’t know.

We took a bus into the city then hopped on another which just goes out to Lone Pine. A half hour later, and we were at koala heaven. There were birds


Turtles


Crocodiles


Ponies


And more. We got to see a dog show, two dogs herding sheep. One dog was about a year old and before the show started he kept wandering to go visit the kids and get attention. When called he would sort of look at the farmer guy like “Do I really have to? This is so much more fun!” The other dog was a few years older and knew her shiz-nit. She sat at attention looking intently at farmer guy waiting for a job. She was really awesome to watch. Once the sheep were in the small pen, she would jump and walk on top of them to make sure they were in tight. A few times one on the end would back up and she would stare it down. You could tell it knew it wasn’t supposed to be away from the group and it would scurry back when she gave it the Puppy Death Glare.


After the dog show we went and saw what was, in my opinion, the coolest thing at the Sanctuary. The kangaroos. There was essentially just a huge fenced in field that the kangaroos could roam around, laze about, and generally be awesome.


You could feed them ($1 for a bag of food) or just go up and pet them. The first time we went in, it was pretty hot so they were mostly just laying about taking naps. A few perked up if they thought you had food, but for the most part they were content to laze about. There were some great picture opportunities because they were so chilled out.

After some time with the kangaroos we went and ate lunch and saw a peacock just strutting his stuff around the tables. He didn’t unfurl his tail, but it was magnificent to look at none the less.


After lunch came the koala cuddling. The line was reasonably short so we hopped in. As long as you paid for one picture you could take as many as you wanted, so we put Andrew on camera duty (as he wasn’t holding one) and got a-cuddling. They are so soft and adorable. The one we held was named Gandalf (lulz, get it, Gandalf the Grey?).


We got to see the Tasmanian devils


And dingoes. However, it was at this point that my camera died, so I don’t actually have any pictures of the dingoes. We also went back and saw the kangaroos again. I will probably steal Kylie and Erin’s pictures from the rest of the zoo-fun eventually, but for now this is what I’ve got. OK I have more, but I don’t think this blog can handle 120 pictures of me attempting to hug a kangaroo and take my own picture. Stay classy, folks!