After our second night in Brisbane, our plan was to rent a car and spend the next few days on the Gold Coast, south of Brisbane. We picked the car up as planned, from the Avis portion of a downtown parking garage. But before heading for the Gold Coast, we first made a point of visiting the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, just outside of Brisbane.

The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary was established in 1927, and is the world's oldest and largest koala sanctuary. It's twenty minutes or so from the city center, located upstream in the suburb of Fig Tree Pocket. As suspected, it was found to house many koalas, as well as a selection of other Australian beasts. For those who don't get out much, koalas are those cute Australian bear-like creatures which aren't really bears at all but marsupials, and Lone Pine is home to 130 of them. They mainly live in trees and eat eucalyptus leaves.

They spend a lot of time sleeping and normally don't move all that quickly, as their diet is so low in energy.

They were hunted nearly to extinction in the early 20th Century (for their fur, not their ferocity) but have since recovered somewhat, despite their habitat being continually reduced. Their current threatened status seems to depend on whom you talk to. But be nice to them, should you have the chance. They're so cute.


The many animals of Lone Pine are scattered throughout the sanctuary, some in enclosures, some in cages, and some, like large lizards and brush turkeys, wandering around loose (it's possible that some of these don't belong to the sanctuary, strictly speaking).



There's a large open enclosure where you can go in and pat kangaroos, wallabies and emus on their somewhat annoyed heads and buy food which you can hand-feed them. There are convenient sinks where you can wash your hands afterward.


Lone Pine also has many shows and presentations which are scheduled throughout the day. Some are essentially discussions of certain types of animals, but others are active demonstrations of some of their capabilities. We attended discussions of koalas (of course) and snakes (with a twelve-foot-long olive python present) and were impressed by demonstrations delivered by sheep dogs (amazingly talented with sheep).


A Birds of Prey demonstration was particularly impressive. A number of birds were permitted to fly around loose, and in some cases they were quite large and capable of inflicting damage.





A Reptile House ("Tails and Scales") showcased cold-blooded Australians, some quite venomous.


An area was also set aside where visitors (for an extra fee) could have their pictures taken holding a koala or a snake. We did both.


We ate a quick lunch in the food area, sitting at an outdoor picnic table. Vacated tables were being promptly scavenged by large, pushy brush turkeys and a lone peacock which was wandering about.


On finishing, we thwarted the scavengers by throwing all of our trash into a receptacle, and then walked out through an area of cages holding mostly birds and departed the sanctuary.


We returned to our rental car and headed southward along the Gold Coast, toward our next destination, the town of Broadbeach.