Easter in Australia: It's the Easter Koala!

When I was a kid, my family celebrated Easter with an Easter egg hunt, brunch and a nice Easter Service at our United Methodist Church. In college, I would spend Easter with friends at the Catholic service at Gonzaga. 

Last year, Nick and I celebrated Easter at our apartment in Madison, WI, with chocolate and hard-boiled eggs which I tried decorating with fancy Pinterest techniques but ended up exploding in the oven.

This year, I was in Australia with Nick for our vacation, and being on the vacation-y road meant we had to work to find something Easter-y to do on Sunday.  What better way to celebrate than with cuddling a koala?! 

(Note that Easter isn't really a religious event for either of us; for me, in particular, it's about family traditions and chocolate)

Queensland is the only territory in Australia where you are allowed to hold a koala. (In other territories you can pet one, but not hold it.) My Australia book advertised the "Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary" as a great place to "cuddle a koala". (It was also conveniently located 16 minutes from Brisbane, where we spent our Saturday night)

Map of the sanctuary

(Admission was $33/ adult)

The term "cuddle" is used pretty liberally... really, I went to the cafe inside the sanctuary, paid $16 for my "koala photo", walked to the koala photo area, where the animal handler had me hold my hands flat so she could place the koala on them. Then the photographer took the photo and I was allowed to hold (not cuddle) the koala for a couple minutes.

When I tried to rock the koala (which was admittedly kind of weird of me, but it's kind of hard not to treat the koala like a cat or baby and cuddle it proper) the animal handler was having none of it. "No moving!" she barked. The koala seemed pretty chill with it, but I stopped moving and remained as tree-like as possible for the remainder of my time.

Then the animal handler put my koala back in his tree.

I knew nothing about koalas before I got to the Sanctuary, but now I know that they have the most enviable schedule of any animal everywhere. Feeding and sleeping, all. day. long. 

After my koala moments, we went to the kangaroo feeding area, which had a couple of metal gates to prevent the various emus and kangaroos from escaping. Because I am completely oblivious to where I am walking, I stepped right in a pile of crap. While wearing flip-flops.

We pet the emus, briefly, but I saw Dude Where's My Car? and I know that tall birds are truly demonic in nature.

And then the kangaroos! We bought some kangaroo feed to give them. Nick wanted to feed the baby kangaroos but I thought the enormous kangaroos were way cooler. 

This kangaroo looks like he's waiting for a kiss. He was adorable.

Aggressive kangaroo on the right. Also, I'm fairly certain that the kangaroo on the left was either pregnant or had a baby joey in her pouch.

Another Aussie animal in his own building, the platypus!

Fun fact from my "Girt" book: when an Aussie colonist explorer sent a taxidermied platypus to England for study, the scientists in London declared the animal impossible, claiming that it had to be a trick, a duck and beaver sewn together by Chinese taxidermists.

The zoo was awesome, and provided a uniquely Australian experience. I felt kind of bad for the kids in the Aussie families who had arrived at 9am sharp, who had obviously had their Easter mornings rushed to get to the zoo early, but it was a cool zoo which made for an interesting couple of hours on our last day in Australia!