Koala Park Sanctuary

I (the miraculous me) had been planning a day in Sydney. Siena and I had showed much interest in seeing koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, kookaburras and so on. So, when I was planning my day, I started looking at all the possible animal options, and here in New South Wales, they are endless. Finally, the Koala Park Sanctuary was picked.

We went out there on a Monday. Siena and I had packed a picnic lunch in case there wasn't a restaurant on the premisis. We left very early in the morning, 7:20 to be exact, as we had to take a bus, a train, and yet another bus to get there. We finally arrived at 9:30, enough time to see all the animals desired and all the presentations the park had to offer. We first headed towards the koalas, the park's main attraction. During the koala presentation, we learned that koalas are extremely lazy; 18 to 19 hours a day are used for sleeping!!! The rest are for eating. They only eat eucalyptus leaves, also known as gum leaves. The eucalyptus gives them enough hydration without their having to drink water. But the leaves are also hard on their digestive system which by the way is 4 meters long!



Next we saw a man sheering sheep and throwing boomerangs. The sheep looked very desperate to get away from the man and away from the sheep dogs too. When the man threw the boomerang, it accidentally got stuck in a tree and that was the end of the presentation.


Next, the famous wombat. We got to touch them. Suprisingly they are not as soft as they appear to be. Instead they are very coarse, most likely a trait needed for their borrowing skills lifestyle. Wombats, like kangaroos, are marsupials. Their pouches, however, are backwards!!! This is because when they dig, they don't want their babies to get dirt in their eyes. The wombats are actually distant cousins of koalas!!!


And for the last presentation, the fairy penguins. They are small, sleek and shy. We didn't see them at first, but when the food came, they thought it was irresistible and had to come out. You can see them in Sydney and Darling Harbor, just you might have to strain your eyes as they are very small.



Next, we bought food (honey nut cheerios) and went to feed the gray kangaroos. They are extremely cute, especially the joeys! We saw one mama with a joey in her pouch, but the head wasn't sticking out, the legs were!!! There were also two joeys outside a pouch, with dad. When I tried to feed them, the dad would nudge their heads aside and take the food for himself!!! What a food hog!




We left the park at about 2:30 to go back to Coogee. It was a long way there and back but we had a very fun day!!!!