Koalas and Kangaroos in Brisbane

All the time we've been in Australia we've been trying to get a Bluey sighting, after all, it is her home.  Karl and I both took pictures of this balloon in the cruise terminal so we could send them to Erin as we've both spent time snuggling with her in the recliner watching Bluey on Disney.  And if I'm honest, I sometimes will watch it even without her because I love Bluey too.

Our first stop on the tour today was the highest point in Brisbane, Mt. Coot-tha, a whopping 305 m (they do meters in Oz but for us it was 1000 ft.) high hill outside the city.  It was a lovely view and probably would have been stellar had it not been a cloudy day.  

Mt. Coot-tha means honey bee in one of aboriginal languages so this is also known as "honey mountain".  At one time there was a weapons storage area here but now its a nature reserve.  As you can see from this photo I'm still working on my selfie-stick skills.

Some pretty flowers there atop the hill.  The white one looked like plumeria and smelled like it as well even though my phone identifier tried to tell me they were something else.  Not sure what the pretty blue ones were.

They have some funny town names here in Oz, I especially liked the name Toowoomba, which is near Brizzy, which is what the locals call their city.  I also got a kick out of the affluent neighborhood named Fig Tree Pocket, not sure how upper crust that really sounds.

The star of the tour day was definitely the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary where we not only saw the cuddly marsupials but lots of kangaroos and other creatures.  

Our tour guide, Tanya, got us into the sanctuary the back way and the guide who let us in suggested we head to the back to the kangaroo enclosure first thing before it got crowded.  On the way there we passed this sign that pointed the way to many of the places we've been or are going.

We also passed by this Rainbow Lorikeet, which has to be one of the most stunning birds I've ever seen.  They were just flying around in the trees.

To get to the paddock where the kangaroos are just hopping around you go through this double doored building.  I liked that there were exits for both adults and children.  There were lots of littles there enjoying the roos today.

It was such fun to just be able to walk up next to the kangaroos, and even pet them a little.  Their hair is pretty wiry, kind of like a short haired dog.  

They had no fear of people and some were pretty inquisitive.  You could buy pellets to feed them so if you held out your hand they would come to see if you had anything for them to eat.

There was a lot of kangaroo poo all around the grounds so you had to be wary of where you stepped.  It looked a lot like deer pellets.

One of my favorite sights was this joey with its mama.  I'm not sure if it was being shy or nursing, I tend to think its the latter.  It was a pretty unique thing to see.

Just a few of the many animals we saw.  You can see from the upper right photo how close we could get to them and give them a pat on the head.

They came in all sizes and types, large and small.

Just for information's sake, a group of kangaroos is called a troop or a mob.  This mob had exited to the other side of the fence for a rest from the humans.

They had leaves in that enclosure to munch on.  Their short arms could help manipulate the branches to get to them.

This one looked like he'd just woken up and was giving himself a stretch to get the kinks out.

Even Karl got to give one of the.kangaroos a little pat on the head.

These were the types of kangaroos they bring here to care for them or rehabilitate them.  We only saw one or two of the larger ones.  Tanya was telling us how the other day she'd seen two kangaroos at a gas station where she lives, Ipswich, west of Brizzy, boxing one another.  She said she'd never witnessed a roo fight before, although seeing them in her yard is somewhat normal.  Seems so crazy to me to have kangaroos in your neighborhood a normal occurrence, like the deer we see at home sometimes I guess.

Lots of reptiles around that Kara would have loved.  The upper left is a water monitor and we saw lots of these just roaming the grounds.  The others in the collage were in their own enclosures.  The upper right is a Parentie, Australia's largest lizard.  The two dark ones on the lower left are Mertens' Water Monitor and can stay under water for several minutes.  The lower right is a Lace Monitor,  these can climb trees so quickly they are sometimes called 'tree goannas'.  

This tough looking bird is a Southern Cassowary, the most dangerous bird in the world.  You pretty much want to stay away from them in the wild as they can run up to 31 mph, jump seven feet high and kick and slash with those nasty dagger-like claws of theirs.  

Mean as they look their favorite food is fruit.  They are the closest living species to dinosaurs which makes total sense when you look at that head.  No one knows for sure what the brown helmet-like thing or casque, on its head is used for ,but it certainly gives them a domineering appearance.

Dingoes are Australia's largest predator.  The ones here at the sanctuary just looked like someone's pet dogs.

Another pretty and unique flower.

Just a photo here of us waiting with Jane and LeaAnn in the line for our koala adventure.

And on to some of the stars of the day, lots of sleepy koalas!  I had to look at the one on the right several times before deciding that it wasn't actually sleeping upside down.

You can get an idea from the one on the left how well they can camouflage themselves in the eucalyptus trees.  They do love to be up in the trees.

11:00 a.m. it was finally time for us to get in line for what I'd been looking forward to for months, holding one of those cuddly looking koalas!  This little guy is Riley and he was warm, heavy, and soft.  I would have liked to have held on for more than just a minute or two.  

We were told we needed to hold our hands just so and stay still so Riley wouldn't think he was on a tree and that he needed to start climbing if we started moving.  It was definitely a memorable moment!

I had never seen a Pink Cockatoo before!  This one is also called a Major Mitchell Cockatoo, named after Major Sir Thomas Mitchell who was a surveyor and explorer in southeast Australia in the early 1800s.  

No trip to Australia would be complete without seeing the Kookabura, one of the favorite birds in the country.  These guys are carnivores who help to keep the small rodent population under control.

  

Our lunch stop was at the Brisbane Botanical Gardens Cafe.  Karl and I both had a nice sausage roll.  I also tried some Kirks Creaming Soda, which was a cream soda with a bit of berry taste, delicious, and a Rocky Road Cookie, which was good but not what I expected.  Unfortunately as we finished up it started to rain pretty hard so we opted to just stay in the cafe until time to leave.  It would have been a lovely place to explore.

We made our way through the Natural History Museum just to get to the Brisbane sign.  Just before going out the door we saw this 6,000,000 piece Lego dinosaur.  It was pretty impressive!

Once we were on the ground again I decided it was time to take my daily selfie.  

The Brisbane sign is pretty colorful and gives you a great view of the some of the city's skyscrapers in the background.  The Brisbane River runs between this spot and the buildings you see.  Originally the city was here on the south side but once they realized that area had a tendency to flood they started building on the north.  For a time the south fell into disrepair with derelict buildings and many homeless but in the 1980's that all changed and the south is again a vibrant place.  Behind us was a large performing arts center.

The main government building is the one on the end at the right.  Tanya told us life in Brizzy is a struggle these days, costs are high and housing is scarce, those in charge have their hands full trying to solve a lot of civic issues.  The white bridge you can see in this photo is the Neville Bonner Bridge, named for the first aboriginal member in the Parliament of Queensland.

Ferries ply the river to get people from one part of the city to another.  This is one of the larger ones called a City Cat.  They also have smaller versions that are called Kitty Cats.

One final photo of the two of us at the Wheel of Brisbane.  The site here was a traditional meeting place for aboriginal tribes so the fact that nearby is now the performing arts center where today's residents gather and that they have festivals here is fitting.

This bit of brick and mortar is all that's left of one of the original bridges over the river.  Brisbane was a convict city, one of the things they brought them here for was to search for precious minerals along the river.  It was difficult work as the base of the river is solid rock.  Much of what they managed to quarry out was used to build some of the city's original buildings.

We stopped at a final overlook for a view of the Brisbane River.  Tanya told us that body of water is always a brown color.

One final peek in the opposite direction on this cloudy, drizzly day.

What to our wandering eyes should appear across the street from our overlook but the Brisbane Temple!  We didn't notice it at first on this gray and dreary afternoon but as soon as we did we hopped out of the van to take a picture.

Thanks Tanya for an informative and fun day!  She did a great job with weather that didn't cooperate very well.  I'd recommend her and her family-owned company to anyone traveling to Brisbane.