I have many favorite places in Gold Coast. And I will probably have as many more in the coming years as I’ve still only seen a fraction of this incredible place. But one of those places will always be Coombabah Lakelands Conservation Area.
This day’s accumulations are as follows:
After 14 months in Australia, my mom has finally arrived after one hell of a trip. All went well, she slept most of the way, but taking off at 9pm local time, flying three flights for 25 hours and landing 6am local time must be rough. We were lucky to have a super early flight and landing late at night. But flying in so early in the morning, we had to keep her awake until it was time to go to bed to make sure she wasn’t suffering from too much jetlag.
I do believe we did a good job of keeping her awake. Breakfast at Alkemist, 6 koalas and hundreds (probably, I lost count) of kangaroos at Coombabah and dinner at Fricken Chicken in Broadbeach. It would have been on the beach if it hadn’t started pouring along with some distant thunder out at sea.
Mikael and I signed up for another free event from the City of Gold Coast and ended up in one of my favorite places in our hometown: Coombabah, but this time trying to spot and hear birds rather than koalas.
Elise’s last day in Australia after visiting us for six weeks came and went so fast. It was not without issues though, but we managed to turn a rather problematic situation into our advantage 😊
This blog is not as active as I was hoping. But so much stuff is happening all the time and while trying to find a routine, it’s hard to keep up with updates (we’re not even gonna discuss my Instagram).
Mother in law has now been here with us down under for a week and she is loving it! She was a bi anxious flying so far, but all went so well, she came down with so much energy and has had no jet lag at all. We have been more tired than her, haha!
On her third day all across the world, we took her to my (so far) favorite place, Coombabah Lake Conservation Park where we had the most wonderful day! The first time, Mikael and I went, we spotted 5 koalas, countless kangaroos, and several kookaburras. This time, we spotted 9 koalas, fewer kangaroos, and no kookaburras. Although we heard many of them laughing loudly. They have a very specific sound.
Spring is definitely here, the days are higher 20’s, 30’s even some days. Mostly sunny, and stormy in the evenings and nights. On Halloween, we had a massive storm right above us. BOM gave out warnings of severe storms with hail more inland. Crazy! But beautiful!
Friday, the day after the extreme thunderstorm, was beautiful, like nothing happened the night before! And we had a once in a lifetime experience ❤️
Here we had koala number one, by the first grass field, 5 minutes walking from the car park.
A kangaroo mom and her joey hiding from the sun.
Koala number two.
And this you guys, is koala number three. I spotted this one after Mikael and Elise had already walked past them. She was awake and started climbing down the tree. And as she was descending, I realized that koala number four was there as well.
She climbed all the way down to the ground, with her baby on her back.
She walked straight toward us to climb a tree right next to us. She was also one eyed.
She hopped up the tree, stopped every now and then and posed adorably for us spectators. Her joey also being super photogenic.
She climbed all the way up to the top where they most likely fell asleep again. Probably that day’s adventure for them since they sleep pretty much every hour of the day. This was the most incredible experience I have ever had and I might have shed a tear of joy or two.
Here is koala number five, clinging to the tree as if its life depended on it.
Kangaroos cooling down in the water.
Koala number six.
And these two guys! Number seven and eight. I wasn’t sure how this worked when I first spotted them because there was a leg hanging very low from the fluffy bum higher up on the right. Then I realized there were two of them sleeping together.
And last but definitely not least, number nine.
This lizard was spotted by Elise.
And we didn’t just see a baby koala, we also had another encounter with a roo mom with a joey poking its head out, eating with its mom. So adorable!!
This was definitely a unit of a kangaroo. The biggest and most muscular one I have seen!
Oh, I miscalculated. We actually spotted ten koalas this day. How could I have missed that?! Oh well, happy mistake 😄
Every day should be like this! Sun, warmth, nature and wildlife. Love it!
24 July
This was the best day in Australia yet! Coombabah Lake Conservation Park was incredible. Such beautiful nature and so much wildlife.
In summary, we saw 5 koalas, two of which I spotted myself (people here are very friendly of pointing out where things are), 5 kookaburras and endless of kangaroos.
Can you spot the koala in the canopies in the picture below? This was our very first one, only five min into the park.
Here is a zoomed in one:
Our first kangaroos (except the one I saw lurking in the high grass beside the M1 a few weeks back): 
Kookaburra number one: 
Koala number two (this one was harder to spot but we got help): 
Koala number three (this one I spotted all by myself): 
Zoomed in through my binoculars: 
This could have been northern Sweden: 
And in the same park there is practically a jungle: 
Koala number four (also spotted by me, but pretty hard to miss): 
Three different kookaburras (the last one was so big it was floating out on the branch): 
And koala number five (we got help with this one, super hard to see): 
A super pregnant roo: 
Here you can see the joey’s feet sticking out of the pouch: 
And also the face sticking out ❤️ (I got this on video and it is probably the best video I have ever filmed): 
Bemm 