Koalas are cuddly, but they're not bears!

We're currently on a 5-day sit in Brisbane, Australia. We only have to care for a cat, so we have lots of free time to discover the area.

We both had a goal to get close to live koalas and kangaroos on this trip, so yesterday we visited the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Tick that one off our bucket lists!

Note I'm wearing a hat. After a few days of the Australian sun in Sydney, I invested in a hat. I'm so glad I did as I'm sure I'll be making good use of it.

Our first stop was to watch a sheep dog show. Two dogs - an older border collie and an energetic young Australian kelpie - put on an entertaining show of their mustering talents. In the photo below, you can see structures in the background. They moved the sheep through a gap in the back left one, and herded them up and over the other one. 

Then they moved them to a gathering pen. At times the dogs needed to resort to jumping up and over the sheep to get the desired results, as you can see the kelpie doing in the photo below.

The herder - who was born on a farm and worked as a farmer his whole life - was happy to answer our questions. In the photo below, he's explaining how you can tell the age of the sheep by counting their teeth, as they drop down in pairs at various stages until they have a full complement of eight teeth, all along the bottom.

He also explained how the fleece picks up dirt and darkens, and in the photo below Greg is showing how clean it is underneath. Once the sheep is shorn, the wool is cleaned. 

The herder said there are 100 million sheep in Australia, and 2000 workers who shear the sheep. Each sheep is shorn once a year, and the workers just continually work to keep up with the volume. In the photo below, the table full of wool is from just one sheep.

As well as the sheep dog show, we saw various birds and animals. There was a raptor show, and this worker stood with one of the owls on display.

A worker came to fill the emu feed centres, and all of us around just stood a safe distance away. Not a bird I'd want to argue with!

The bird in the photo below is a Southern cassowary, Australia's heaviest bird. It was huge, and not the prettiest bird ever. The grey area above the blue neck and face has a hard shell-like surface. Notice the long legs too. Again, not one I'd like to get close to.

The bird in the next photo is far more attractive. It's a kookaburra and is native to Australia.

Back to the bucket list. We wandered around a large enclosure that had lots of kangaroos. Most were constantly being fed by children. Every kangaroo seemed docile, which I understand is not their normal temperament as they can be quite nasty to humans.

This was the only kangaroo I saw not surrounded by children. His quiet time didn't last long though.

The kangaroo in the photo below is being fed from a small bag of food by a child. I just took the opportunity for a photo while it was preoccupied.

This was Greg's favourite kangaroo for some reason.

So what's a koala sanctuary without photos of koalas? Oh, believe me, I took photos! I'll spare you the volume and just pick out some of my favourites.

Koalas - who are not bears, by the way - eat only eucalyptus leaves. The staff cluster branches into vase-like holders, and regularly replenish them. Can you spot the koala in this photo?

Look for the arms and hands on a branch. He's on the first branch that's directly above the grate in the floor. Like most, he was sleeping.

I took this photo because I liked the one on the far left, where it looks like he's try to grab the butt of the one in front. Sneaky! This was also unusual as we didn't see too many grouped together; they seemed more solitary.

I liked this one as the one below seemed to be indifferent about the upper one standing on his head.

Let's just say Greg commented that this one was obviously a boy. I think he may have been dreaming about another koala he had an interest in ;)

This one was happy to see one of the workers, and was marking his territory ...

... it was lunchtime for him!

As always, we appreciate the various flowers we see along our travels. Speaking of travels, the sign below was a stark reminder of just how far we are away from home. Below Greg's hand is Ottawa, Canada - more than 15,000 km away.

When we came home, we noticed this lovely pink bloom with its purple inserts in our front yard.  

Eastern Australia has had some weather watches issued this week, calling for high temperatures. By the end of this day trip, it was about 32ºC (90ºF). We're fortunate to have a lovely swimming pool at our house sit, so we were able to cool off after a few hours at the sanctuary. A lovely end to an enjoyable day!