Billabong Sanctuary

Holding a baby croc!

Nick and I were very excited. We were going to hold one of the cutest animals on the planet- a koala!

We were the only car in the Billabong Sanctuary parking lot two hours before opening time. We waited impatiently, checking if the gates had opened yet. Through the fence we could see the shape of dogs- dingoes being taken for a morning walk. Finally it was 9 am and we were the first through the door.

All kinds of Australian critters from the smallest bilby to the biggest croc call Billabong Sanctuary home. But we were most excited for the most famous tenant- the Koala.

Through out the day we went to all the exhibits and a good number of shows and feedings. The first was the cassowary. Smaller than an ostrich but heavier than an emu this jungle bird is a "key stone" species that is vital to it's ecosystem and can not be replaced. The cassowary is native to Northern Australia and Papua New Guinea and does it's part by eating large fruit and passing it so that the plant can spread. The fruit is too large for anything else to eat so you can see why this prehistoric looking bird is so important. We learned that the large lump on it's head is a built in air conditioner that draws heat away from the cassowary's body. The males incubate and raise the chicks.

Next we fed turtles. This wasn't too special but there sure were a lot of them.

During the wombat show we learned all about this intriguing creatures. Weighing up to 80 pounds wombats are prolific diggers and can excavate cubic feet in a single night. They can run 42 miles an hour for short distances and when a predator follows them into their burrow they use a bony plate on their backside to crush the intruders skull against the roof of the tunnel. Nick and I got to hold a wombat named Ruben. He was pretty heavy and more like a stuffed animal than a living one.

Koalas are a wombat's closest relative. They have a bony plate too except they use it to sit on so they don't get pins and needles. The eucalyptus that makes up their diet provides very little excess energy which is why they sleep 23 hours of the day. The leaves give them all the water they need so they never need to come down, talk about lazy! It doesn't help that their brains have a diameter of less than an inch. I guess it just floats around in that big skull..... We got to hold Malaku the koala who was soft and smelled like- yep, eucalyptus. Legally a koala can only "work" (that means being touched) 30 minutes a day and every 2 days get a day off. Can I be a koala? That sounds like the life!

Nick with a Bilby statue

Nick was excited to see the bilby and managed to get a peek at one before it went to sleep. Bilbys are a small species of marsupial that has rabbit ears and a mouse body.
On our way out we saw a crocodile show and got to here the blood chilling sound of their jaws coming together. We also saw cassowary's less attractive cousin the emu and as we left picked up a photo of us holding the animals. We won't forget the koalas and wombats of Billabong Sanctuary any time soon!

Emu alert!

Snakes!

Other than a platypus the echidna is the only mammal that lays eggs

Dingoes on an afternoon walk

Hungry turtles