Work, work...and Koalas! (July 21-23)

Monday and Tuesday were working days for me, so I won't say much here.  I spent a few hours visiting a boys' school with whom we would like to set up an exchange program, and because the weather wasn't great (cloudy and rainy), I decided to use the days to start prepping for the fall semester.  Fun, and more fun!  Actually, it was great to get some work done without distractions, and to make sure I didn't lose my momentum, I booked a tour for Wednesday - a Brisbane River cruise followed by time at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, and was very much looking forward to it.   

Wednesday started beautifully.  The sun was back, and the weather a cool, breezy 65.  I started the day with another amazing morning run by the river; I've already grown attached to that run and I'm going to miss it when I leave.  The cruise itself was to depart from the South Bank, near where the Food and Wine Festival was this weekend, so I decided to walk there.

The cruise itself was lovely; it took just over an hour to get from our departure point to the Sanctuary, and along the way our tour guide pointed out the various sights along the river.  The 12 miles or so of river we traveled were lined with beautiful homes and gorgeous landscapes.  I learned that many of these homes had been badly damaged by a severe flood that ravaged Brisbane in 2011; to look at the coastline now, you wouldn't know there'd been any kind of flood at all.  I didn't get many pictures, unfortunately, but hopefully these will give you some idea of the beauty of the Brisbane River.

On the way, we were treated to a little information about Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.  It is the largest koala sanctuary in the world - founded in 1927 by a man named Claude Reed, who was concerned about protecting the endangered species.  He filled the land with eucalyptus trees, and started with two koalas, Jack and Jill.  Now, the sanctuary houses over 130 koalas, as well as kangaroos, wallabies, dingoes and wombats.  I could not wait to get there.

When we arrived, as we exited and walked up the hill to the sanctuary, we were met by this guy:

I don't know if you can see him - he's some kind of lizard creature - I saw a few more crawling around throughout the sanctuary but they were very hard to get pictures of because they blend in so well with the scenery.  Then, once we entered, we saw the koalas. They were everywhere! In open pens, on trees - I got lots of pictures.  The older koalas were in the "retirement" pen, the baby koalas in the "kindergarten" pen.  They are so beautiful - here are a few shots:

I immediately went over to the area where they let visitors hold koalas (there's a fee, of course - but the money goes to the sanctuary, and heck, you get to hold a koala, so who cares?).  When it was my turn to hold the koala the worker placed my hands together flat, at waist level, and told me to hold firmly but not to move once she handed me the koala.  She then introduced me to him - his name was Hugo - and put him into my arms.  He was lovely!! He put his little koala hands on me and looked up at me with his beautiful koala eyes, and I just fell in love!

After a few minutes I had to give him back, sadly.  But that koala love stayed with me for the rest of the day :) and I headed over to see the kangaroos.  This was really neat - the kangaroos, along with ostriches and ducks, are in this wide open pen.  They walk right up to the visitors - I could have bought kangaroo feed but decided against it since I find the idea of hand feeding animals a little nerve-wrecking.  I did pet a few though - really, really wild.  This guy walked right up to me - I'm sure he thought I had food.  They are just adorable!

I saw lots of other animals at the Koala Preserve.  I saw wombats:

Sleeping Tasmanian Devils:

And more kangaroos - like this mother and her joey:

After a few hours, it was time to go.  I was sorry to leave; I could have stayed there and wandered around all day - such a beautiful, quiet place.  We got back onto the boat to head back, and I took this last picture - I'm so in love with this country and its beauty.  I can't wait to see what's next.