Student Bloggers

It’s been a while since my last post, but I finally did enough that I felt I had a good amount of stuff to write about. This past weekend I went to North Stradbroke “Straddie” Island, and about three weeks ago I spent about four hours at the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, and that’s what I’m going to tell you about first.

First and foremost, let me just say if you ever get the chance to come to the Gold Coast, you must make a point to go to CWS, if only to get to do what I got to do there:

Probably my favorite experience so far, except for the fact koalas smell horrible!

It was a once in a lifetime experience that I’ll never forget. I think the koala’s name was Rocky, if I remember correctly. Then just seeing all the koalas they had at the sanctuary was kind of crazy. They had to have had a good 20 or so koalas there, in different areas of the sanctuary; but they’re adorable so who could say no?

Then I saw a bunch of other animals (I don’t remember most of the names of these animals because they’re not animals we’d find in the states) on my way to what I would say was my second favorite part of my visit; the kangaroos! The kangaroo exhibit at CWS is really cool because they allow you to go inside the exhibit and actually pet and interact with the animals (even feed them if you’re willing to pay for the food). The first thing I saw when I walked over to the kangaroo exhibit was kangaroo mating. It was quite a shocking (and kind of funny) sight. Mostly because I was standing behind a bunch of young school children (I think it was a camp), and they were all saying “Oohh, what is that”, and “What are those kangaroos doing?” and the adults in the group had no idea what to tell them at all, and I was just laughing in my head. Anyways, the kangaroos were really cool. I saw a young kangaroo, and plenty of older ones.

Did you know that kangaroos are almost always pregnant? Once they give birth to a joey, it’s almost guaranteed that they’re probably pregnant with another kangaroo at the same time. Kind of crazy, right? They also had emus in the exhibit with the kangaroos, and let me tell you, they are kind of intimidating with the little beady eyes, and they’re really tall. I really didn’t want one to get close to me (and then one did later on but we’re not there yet).

After the Red Kangaroo exhibit I saw more kangaroos just hanging around outside not inside any exhibit whatsoever. We could pet these ones too, and the best part about them was that one of the kangaroos had a joey that was hanging around outside of the pouch!

These guys were really fluffy, but also super adorable and the joey…!!

I moved on to the crocodiles, which I kind of walked through rather quickly because I’m not a huge fan of animals that have the potential to cause me bodily harm (yes, I know kangaroos can do the same thing, but they’re cute, and crocs are not). I did get some photos of them, however, because I photographed everything.

Freshwater crocodiles; Saltwater crocodile; Lizards were hanging out all over the place, especially near the crocodile exhibits

I also got to see some tree kangaroos, and they were really cute, if I had gotten to see more than just their backs, that is… I can say that they are very colorful, and particularly good at rolling themselves up into tiny little balls, but that’s about it.

The picture up top of the emu is when I had to get really, really close on my way to go see the tree kangaroos. The emu was in the grass just out and about in the area, and I had to walk right past him and it was a bit creepy. I felt like he was staring at me the whole time.

That’s about it for my trip to the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. I really enjoyed it and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn about Australian animals, as I believe they have almost everything. (FYI: they do not have a platypus.)