The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

[editor's note:  we visited May 3, 2012]

            The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary was one of the best places I visited in Australia.  Not only did I get to hold a koala, but I also got to get in close and personal with kangaroos and wallabies.  When holding the koala, I thought it would be furrier than it was.  Instead, it was both coarse and furry.  The koala smelt like eucalyptus leaves and snuggled against my face.  Even though that was a precious moment I would never forget, feeding the kangaroos and wallabies was better.  When I fed the wallabies first, I did not realize how skittish they were.  You had to approach them with caution and they slowly came up to one.  However, one of the wallabies I encountered was more friendly and grabbed my fingers and brought my hands closer to his mouth.  The kangaroos, on the other hand, were not like that at all.  They came up to you and were very interactive.  At times I had two kangaroos eating the food on one hand.  Even when the food was gone, one of the kangaroos still insisted that I had more food and grabbed the brown bag and stuck its head in it.  One of the larger kangaroos was particularly fond of me and was after my peanut butter sandwich in my backpack.  It wrapped its body around me and tried to whack at my bag.  Thankfully he was not successful and I did not get hurt.  This will be a day that I will never forget.   

Rachelle von Readen