Yes, you can pet a kangaroo.

We went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary and saw most of the famous Aussie critters. They had a large fenced area where kangaroos, wallabies and emus were hanging around. A kangaroo's coat is surprisingly soft, almost like a rabbit.

 

A wallaby.

 

 Chillin'.

(They had a special cordoned off area where the animals could go to get away from human contact. Their motto is "Earth is not only for humans")

One of several momma kangaroos with Joeys in their pouch. That's his head and his back feet sticking out.

 

The main mission of the Sanctuary is to rescue and care for Koalas, but it's also a small zoo. There's only one species of Koala and they only live in fragmented habitats on the eastern coast of Australia.

Eucalyptus leaves are a low energy food source, so Koalas sleep about 19 hours a day. They are cute, but not very exciting (and pretty stinky).

A Kookaburra

When these birds start "laughing" it sounds the trees are full of monkeys.

 

They had several kinds of cockatiels, this is the first black one I've seen. They also had a white one that was saying hello to everyone with an Aussie accent. I had no idea these birds could "talk" but a couple of them had a whole list of words and phrases they could vocalize.

 

 

Emu.

A cassowary. An endangered bird slightly smaller than an Emu. Doesn't this look like a dinosaur/bird link?

Australia has a lot of cool lizards.

I think Dingoes are a lot prettier than coyotes. The white one was howling a bit while we were there.

 

We're Just Walkin' Around...Lookin' Around...

I went out with the Walking for Pleasure Brisbane group yesterday for one of the all-day walks.  Anyone who wants to go pays a transport fee and we all ride together in a hired bus/van to a scenic locale. We went north to Minyama, Mooloolabah and Point Cartwright. It was about an hour and a half ride up and we did 4 different walks in the area with picnic stops for some BYO morning tea and lunch.

This train station screen is a stand-in for the comedy-of-errors beginning to my trip. First, the train was different from the online schedule, so I arrived at the meeting spot with only 10 minutes to spare. Then, the pedestrian "tunnel" I thought I would take wasn't open for the day. Then I needlessly ran/speed-walked around the block twice, wearing a backpack and a raincoat (it was not raining). The lovely group members waited for me and looked for me and I made it onto the van only about 10 minutes late. 

 

(Sorry for the wobbly phone/camera and the wind noise)

 It was totally worth it because the walks were so great!  This is the group walking along the Esplanade Park beach. The other photographer is also a group member, he was smart enough to bring a real camera.

 

The beach was about 8 miles long, but we only walked a couple of miles along it. This pic was taken from Point Cartwright, which has a working lighthouse on it. This is the Coral Sea, the Eastern shore of Australia is on the the Coral and Tasman seas.

(Caution more loud wind noise)

We saw some surfers at a break on the north side of Point Cartwright. They were all wearing full wetsuits as it's the middle of "winter" here.

 

 We walked along another, more sheltered beach surrounded by parkland and walking paths. The Surf Lifesavers had flags out and were patrolling the beach, so people could swim. These beaches were all posted either no swimming, or swimming only between the flags.  Check out the Australian Surf Lifesavers, making ocean swimming safe in Australia.

 

I'd like to go back and explore these tide pools some time, anyone want to join me?

 

!Birthday Hiking!

We celebrated my birthday one day early by going on a fantastic picnic and hike in the Springbrook National Park.

 

 This is Mike Horn, a fellow Cerner expat who invited us to explore Springbrook with him and do some hiking there. He was kind enough to pick us up, and we had a great day of hiking, taking pictures and eating picnic yummies in a gorgeous rainforest, right on the QLD/NSW border.

 

 The first of several waterfalls we saw was making a nice rainbow near the bottom of the 200' plus drop.   (For scale, notice the palm tree, Jeff really zoomed in on it.)

 

These gnarly old Antarctic Beech trees are descendents of the Gondwana trees and are over a thousand years old.

 

 This lookout is on the rim of an extinct volcano that contains most of the park. The mountains here are not very high, but still provide spectacular views.

 

The trail we choose to hike went down into a steep canyon, past multiple waterfalls and back up the other side. It had rained all week the previous week so everything was lush and the all the streams were running high and fast.

 

 

I was glad we had the walking poles Steve gave us. It wasn't a tough hike, but there were a lot of wet, slippery rock sections and the poles really helped. 

   First we hiked across the creek that formed this waterfall, then down into the canyon and past the base of the fall.

 

 Amazing, right?

 

Twin Falls, one of several falls you could climb up and get behind. I scampered back down and snapped Mike and Jeff.

 

 

Some brave and hearty Queenslanders have built first rate trails here. There were bridges over all these creeks so you could watch the water rush over the edge and fall into the canyon.

 

This waterfall came crashing down onto the rocks, kicking up heaps of spray.

 

 

Looking back at the canyon on the way out, there's one of the waterfalls we went behind. 

 

One last look down at the forest canopy from above. I had never hiked canyons like this before, solid trees from the ridge line to the bottom. I'm glad they were able to preserve this ancient forest.

 

Surfers Paradise and the Gold Coast.