Wildlife and where to find it (pt 2...still at the zoo, with the cuddlies this time)

This is how to do living on the Gold Coast. 

 Koalas are not the only critters to have very thick soft fur (as you will shortly see), which seems like an odd thing when the climate is so blinking hot. But in fact it keeps them from getting both too hot or too cold.

Interestingly, it's very popular here to have sheep skin car-seat covers - again it seems counter-intuitive but it does actually seem to work in the same way (..and as it happens, I've just bought a wool filled duvet at home for the same reason).

There was a 'cuddle the koala' thing available, but actually I didn't want to. Poor little thing being passed from tourist to tourist to tourist... though they do make for a very satisfying armful that much is obvious. But I was happy just to watch them chilling out, which they do with supreme style and confidence.

For more on Koalas go here.

Koalas are closely related to Wombats. This here is Heather. She's pretty much a pensioner at roughly 25 years old. She's a southern hairy nosed wombat, so not a local native. The northern hairy nosed wombat is critically endangered, and can only be found in the Epping Forest National Park in Queensland, where there are only around 160 of them.

She has that very thick dense fur again, and full of dust. Wombats love to dig, and make spectacular burrows. The keeper told us that they periodically fill the burrows in for what they call 'enrichment' activity.

They are pretty sizeable - thick set and powerful - maybe growing up to 80 cm long. She does have a companion, Eddie. But apparently she'd been giving him a bit of a hard time of late, so he was relaxing in his own enclosure.


These guys are CUTE. Tree kangaroos. They really look cuddly, and what an amazing colour. I'm not sure what type these are - Australia has two, native to Northern Queensland, and both very rare.

You see some nice footage of these guys here.

They are very sensitive creatures, and poignantly will try to remain in their territory even when all the trees have been cleared. Obviously this doesn't go well for them, and conservation is a high priority.



Here's a 'roo and an emu. Please note, the photographer is INSIDE the enclosure. And that 'roo was more than happy to have some ear scratching and general up-close friendliness. Such a nice thing to have had the chance to tickle a kangaroo. It's a grey eastern, not too big and very relaxed. There was a whole mob of them out in the park, doing exactly what this one was doing.

There were these fellas too. Big red 'roos.

Much bigger, and in an enclosure. They tend to decimate the grass as you can see, and maybe they're less amiable than the slightly smaller greys. They share the tendency to loll around though.



Not cuddly I know, but rather magnificent I think. The original mucky duck. Not as big as the white swans I'm used to seeing at home, but very handsome.

This chap is also not cuddly. But he is the closest I've come to knitting for some time, so I had to include him. He's a merino ram, and very impressive he was too. Mainly I was amazed at how big he was...heading towards small pony big, but much bigger boned. That's a lot of wool.

There were lots of other things too - all sorts of birds and snakes, and lots of water dragon lizards scuttling about all over the place, as well as wild bush turkeys. Plenty of actual wildlife cashing in on the free food opportunities.

There were dingos too. Also bigger than I expected, and the enclosure was well back, across a creek and up a hill. They looked very much like blonde alsatians, and stared at us in the most discomfiting way...probably not cuddly then.

On which note, I think we all need another 'ahhhh' moment. One more koala then....

...totally baked or what?