Koalas, skippies and Joeys

Thursday 8th February 2007

Today was magic. Sid, Sam and I went to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. Carole was at work, Jake at school, and Dan felt he had ‘done’ Currumbin enough times with their numerous visitors, for whom it is a favourite spot. So we took his car, and off we went.

Currumbin is about a half an hour’s ride from Mudgeeraba and has been a wildlife sanctuary with all the species indigenous to Australia, since 1947. It is in the bush just a mile or two inland from the Gold Coast.

First came the koala bears, with the obligatory pose with one, for a professional photo. The photo you see here is with our camera.
And they are every bit as sweet as you imagine them to be. I wondered why I was given a serviette to hold before the ranger placed the koala in my hands, and then I smelled why. They poo as you’re holding them, but fortunately, only in the napkin. At least as good, was seeing the dozens of koalas up in the trees as you enter the park.
Then it was on to my favourite, skippy, the kangaroo. And there were hundreds of them – I can’t every remember seeing kangaroos before, although I think I must have done at Regent Park Zoo as a child. They are wonderful and these were very people friendly as some of the photos show – I took zillions of photos that I will bore you all with on our return. Favourite of course were those with a ‘Joey’ in their pouch.

We saw crocodiles (and held a baby croc), snakes, geckos (which reminded me of the one Ben kept as a pet as a boy, when I was always sent to buy the live crickets that they feed on), lizards,iguanas, birds of prey (kites, buzzards etc) and the most wonderful array of parrots and lorikeets. And we saw some dingos (in a large penned off area) and kept our distance.

We went to shows and demonstrations with the snakes, birds and crocodile feeding. And I took up the offer of holding a snake so that it would allay my fear of them. As the picture showed, it didn’t!

It was a really lovely day, rounded off by coming home to a great meal cooked by Carole, who as you’ll remember, is a professional chef (who now teaches trainee chefs).
Tomorrow we are going to Tallerbudgera Creek for a swim in the morning and then back to pack up as we’re going to South Stradbroke Island for the weekend, so no more blogs or emails until we return.