Today was spent at Currumbin Wildlife Sancturay, 15 min away with the bus from where we are staying in Kirra. As long as we are doing things along the Gold Coast Hwy, the buses and trams are amazing. And in August, one trip with bus, tram or train will be only 50 cents.

We spent the full day at the Wildlife Sancturay and we sure got tired after running around, listening to talks, looking at all the cute animals and reading interesting facts. It was $65 per person and was bigger than I thought at first.

In the morning and afternoon, they had Lorikeet feeding just outside the entrance to the sanctuary. There were tons of the colorful birds, they were sitting on people and chatting. Just inside the entrance, we saw our first koalas! Pelican and eel feeding was pretty cool. The pelicans were huge! 2,5m wingspan. The eels were huge and apparently only ate things on shore and reacted to vibrations. So the feeders stomped on the ground and they almost jumped out of the water and ate. All so they wouldn’t lose their natural instincts once they were released back in the wild. They apparently can bite pretty bad, so when fishing from shore, one has to wear good boots. There were so many kangaroos here. They were mostly inside there “no people zone” which was totally understandable. But there was one mama roo that crawled under the rope to get some pets and pellets. Surprisingly soft! Emus walked around and also enjoyed getting back strokes. And then there were my favorite animal in the world, the red panda in the Lost Valley. In the Lost Valley were Capybaras as well. And tree kangaroos. And Binturongs. Inside the massive aviary in the Lost Valley. Glossy Ibis, a relative, I would assume, to the White Ibis (Bin Chickens) that runs around everywhere. There were also sunbathing lemurs inside the aviary. Inside the Sanctuary they also have the Currumbin Wildlife Hospital, the world’s busiest wildlife hospital. At 11:30 am, they had a patient behind glass doors and a presentation of what they do. She said they had 17 000 wild animals coming through every year. The koala on the table today was Tom Hunks, very similar looking to the actor, but more hunky. They name every animal that comes through to more easily reach out to people for donations and the ability to keep going. It all seemed very genuine! Lunch at The Homestead was so good! And not too expensive. Or maybe we have gotten used to the prices here. A monitor lizard. They can run up to 40km/h! Freshwater crocodiles. Rock wallabys. Boss Hog, 5m, 700kg, probably 60-70 years old. That’s a big salty! They had so many birds! And so many koalas! More wallabys. We ended the day by going to Wild Skies, a show with and about birds. It was so good! The birds, black cockatoos, owls, macaws and Australia’s biggest bird of prey Wedge-tailed eagle. They presented it in such an interesting and fun way. Highly recommend! They were also very focused on dinosaurs and extinction and prevention of future extinctions. There was a trail with the most recent extinctions with the Tasmanian Wolf (Thylacine) at the front which went extinct only 100 years ago. And all the way back to the megafauna and dinosaurs that roamed here. Seems to be a lot of focus on dinosaurs here in Australia. I love it! There was also some snakes and frogs and lizards. This here is the Northern Death Adder. The most deadly snake in the world. I hope we will never encounter any snake in the wild. I wouldn’t know the difference and would be scared!