Lions and Tigers and... wait we're in Oz

Today was a fabulous day of experiencing Australian tourist traps first hand. It all started with Liam's mum driving us and Jonas (a German backpacker, pronounced 'Y'onas, also staying with Liam's family) to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.

At the 'sanctuary', really just a fancy name for a zoo, we saw loads of Koala's, Kangaroos and a few wombats. The wombat really is a fascinating animal; it was my first experience with the creature and the bear/pig/koala looking animal is absolutely brilliant.

Apparently they can be quite fiesty animals however, and the workers steer clear of there cages when they are awake. Along with looking at the different animals we were able to watch birds of prey fly around, Brooke actually had the barn owl land on her arm, touch a huge python snake, hold a koala and feed kangaroos.

Holding the Koala was fabulous. It has a very soft coat, and was not as all cranky as I had heard it would be, more lazy really (an animal after my own heart eh?). And for those who think we are having to much fun being away from school, do not be concerned as we enjoyed a very informative lesson on Koala's and the eucalyptus they eat.

A koala doing what it does best.

Indeed the eucalyptus is not a narcotic that causes the koala's to sleep, but has very little nutritional energy value as it is mostly water and fiber, forcing the Koala's to sleep most of the day to conserve energy (sounds like a rough life).

After learning heaps about Koala's and eucalyptus and then holding a Koala we headed off to buy rabbit pellets to feed the Kangaroos. The kangaroos were quite friendly and very accustomed to people and came right up to you to eat the scrumptious rabbit pellets right out of our hands.

We even saw a kangaroo with a cute little Joey in her pouch. The Joey was so small and never came out more than poking his head out for a bit, and mostly hung his foot out, apparently it was the most comfortable position.

An interesting point to be made were the fabulous outback animal modeling pictures we were able to get while at the sanctuary. Here this Kangaroo posed very nicely,

Along with this Koala,

Who knew we would fing such photgenic animals eh?

Once we had finished at the Koala Sanctuary we decided to find a grocery store. After unsuccessful attempts to hitch a ride we managed to procure a seat for ourselves on the city bus, without paying a fare (so we in fact hitched the bus). An interesting point about Australia: there are very few free standing grocery stores. If you are looking for a supermarket, head towards any mall and it will most likely be in the middle, next to the other clothing and department stores. An interesting concept really.

After spending much to much on food (food, and everything really, is expensive in Australia, slightly depressing when coming from Fiji where things were fairly inexpensive and we had a better exchange rate) we took our bags to the malls food court where we commenced in eating our spoils. My personal favorite was watching Brooke attempt to eat an entire 1/4 watermelon with only a small plastic fork.

After eating we got back on the bus (not free this time, as it was rush hour and we were had a very cranky driver) and went to visit Lindsey at her house in the center of the city. Lindsey introduced us to the Flying Fox, a bat which inhabits the skies at dusk in Brisbane and to the various geckos within her apartment that she is training to defend her against the numerous cockroach attackers she has in her house.

After an evening with Lindsey and Johnny in Chocolat, we caught the last bus back to Liam's where we fulfilled everyone's impression on Americans as being loud and annoying as we serenaded the bus with country hits from the 90's...