'Ello! Bye bye!

And 24 hours later... I have reached the sunburned land. Qantas is an incredible airline, their service is great and the plane I was on for the 15 hour drag wasn't even full. I had an empty seat next to me so sleeping was fairly easy and not too cramped. We reached Sydney at 6:30am or so and from there I successfully got confused and turned around, please be surprised, but still made it to the connecting flight for Brisbane. The landscape we flew over was incredible. It was just gorgeous! The oceans boasted varying shades of blues and greens while the land was full of foliage with various rivers and streams cutting through it.

Leaving Sydney

Hello Australia!

After arriving in Brisbane airport, I got my two pieces of luggage (MUCH easier said than done) and walked around attempting to find UGA representatives. I met up with a few students and after the last flight had arrived we were on our way- straight to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Copious amounts of food greeted us including giant chunks of steak. Gee, thanks.

One of the students, Elise, and I went to get our token Koala photos. The little guy was like holding a sack of potatoes! He was absolutely precious though. Then Christine, another TA, gave us a whirlwind tour of the rest of the grounds which included Tasmanian devils, golden opossums, owls, dingoes, platypus (they NEVER stay still), snake-necked turtles, brown tree snake, lots of pythons, wombats, baby koalas, freshie crocs, farm animals, talking birds with accents (cockatoos), fruit bats (huge), kookaburra, cassowary (look this one up!) and far more that I can’t recall. At the sanctuary there was a nifty little area where they had tons of kangaroos and emus where guest could waltz right up and poke the poor creatures as much as they pleased. Did I do my fair share of kangaroo harassing? You bet.

The koala is completely doped on his eucalyptus

This fella was feeling a little frisky! Not sleeping like all the others...

Rough life they have

First up was the emu which was probably the most bizarre animal encounter I’ve had. Those things are just nasty looking. I hesitantly petted him and chuckled at Christine’s friend-making attempt. Hilarious.

Not so sure about this creature...

We wandered deeper into the field where there was an innocent little roo just begging for attention. He was so soft and cute! One of the older kangaroos was lounging in the corner of the pen and showing off his arm muscles... intimidating. They weren’t shy at all and jumped at the opportunity to eat pellet food right out of our palms.

My first encounter with a real roo! (That is the OMG so cute face)

Elise and I ambushing a relaxed roo

PRECIOUS

 Elise and I meandered out way back through the labyrinth of cages, passing the ozzie-accented “hello”… “bye bye” cockatoo. The day was just beautiful- perfect for koala time! I got the chance to meet our very friendly bus driver, Ken, and meet up with Bob along with the rest of the crew. The drive back into Brisbane was crammed full of valuable information from Bob until we arrived at the Astor hotel- each room equipped with a hot water maker: my priority….. hello caffeine.

The zooming platypus

Venomous brown tree snake. Friendly.