KOALA SANCTUARY
They say that before you get in a relationship with someone you should really get to know yourself. On the TV show Parks and Recreations one character, Ann Perkins (portrayed by the lovely Rashida Jones), decides to date herself in an attempt to get to know herself. This involves her doing things she wouldn't normally do, like skydiving and trying new foods. Now this idea got me thinking: I should date Rashida Jones. However, I currently live in Australia and the long distance thing might not work out, but I had another idea: while I'm on my own in Australia I should date myself. Now me and myself have been going steady for about 21 years, but we've never really been on "date" date. This solitude is a great chance for me to just spoil myself and do the things I want to do. So I went to the zoo.
But not just any zoo. I went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Their website points out that it was ranked one of "Top 10 Zoos In The World" by AOL. That's right, AOL. Online powerhouse from the early 2000s. I have an email account with AOL so I can sign up for stuff without getting spam in my real email account. If candystand.com thinks I read their emails everyday, they have another thing coming. I'm only registered for your site so I can get the highscore on mini golf, Candystand! Aol joking aside this really was a cool zoo. It's uniqueness is what sets it apart from most other Zoos. It focuses primarily on Australian fauna, particularly on Koalas as the name suggests. If I could quantify the amount of Koalas in the sancutary my estimate would be about a buttload (a metric butt tonne in Australia). They were all situated in these cute little habitats where they can sit around and eat Eucalyptus all day. It's a common myth that the Eucalyptus makes the Koalas "drunk" or "high" or "loaded" or "tanked". But the real reason is that Eucalyptus is low in energy so they have to sleep like 19 hours a day. They spend most of their 5 waking hours eating bon bons, drinking Sangria and watching "Days of Our Lives". I was fortunate to come at a time of day where most of the Koalas were active. They are adorable animals despite their freeloading lifestyle. I had a cuteness overload when I saw Koala baby, called a Joey (source: Wikipedia), holding onto the back of it's Mom, called Chandlers (source: Made up). I had to listen to twenty minutes of "A Prairie Home Companion" to overcome the adorablephylactic shock.
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| Collective awws. People love marsupial babies. |
Queensland is one of the only places where you can actually hold a Koala, so the sanctuary has this thing where you can hold one and get your picture taken. It was a little expensive so I opted out but they had a bunch of pictures with celebrities holding Koalas. It's actually pretty amazing how popular Koalas are. People come from all over the world just to see these little guys and all they do is sit in trees and eat Eucalyptus. They are basically the Kim Kardashians of the animal kingdom. But...we have to save the environment...symbol of Australian conservation...blah blah blah.
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| They have a marketing campaign directed solely at Danny Sullivan |
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| Pope John Paul II placed tastefully below Taylor Swift, Hayden Panettiere, and Slipknot |
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| Drunk and disorderly. |
After paying my respect to the Koalas I went to see some of the other animals. There was one section devoted to Australian farmland which was actually pretty cool because they did stuff like sheep shearing demonstrations and dog herding shows, which was fun to watch. There was one dog that would walk on top of fences and over the backs of sheep to the amusement of the crowd. I wondered why my dog couldn't do that but then I remembered that he is an idiot and weighs like a hundred pounds. He could probably succeed in knocking like five of them over before herding the rest into a pond. Anyway, the demonstration took place on a small little pasture and the guy running the show had a great Australian accent so it was a delightful homage to Australian sheep herding. And in case you were wondering, I made a ton of "Babe" references in my head.
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| BAH RAM EWE |
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Dog on Wire |
I then headed over to the Kangaroo enclosure. This was coolest thing in the park. You were allowed to just walk around in this large enclosure full of Kangaroos, Wallabies, and Emus. I was astounded at how unregulated the place was. I didn't see a single park attendant in the entire enclosure. Not only that, you were encouraged to feed and pet the Kangaroos and Wallabies. I was nervous about petting the Kangaroos because I'd always heard about how they were potentially dangerous animals and you can never really know with undomesticated animals (or domesticated ones for that matter). The Kangaroos however were totally cool. There were even kids running around petting them and getting pictures taken. I was just waiting for someone to step on a Kangaroo tail or get between a Joey and its Mom, but it never happened. I even saw, to my horror, one person petting a Joey while it was in it's mother's pouch, an activity explicitly stated on the gates to the enclosure not to do. But the Kangaroos were fine with it I guess. I eventually gathered the courage to pet a kangaroo and it mostly expressed indifference in my normally exquisite ability to scratch behind the ears. I guess my nerves got to me.
I generally kept a large bredth between the emus and the larger Kangaroos. Funny enough, the only thing you weren't allowed to pet in this part of the park were the Wombats, which I guess are quite ferocious marsupials.
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| Asked him for tips on working my tris. He said bench and whey protein. |
The rest of the park was comprised of reptiles, birds, tasmanian devils, dingos, and one platypus. I will show you most of those through pictures and funny captions.
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| Tried to speak Parseltongue but I couldn't understand his thick Australian accent. |
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| Straight chillin' |
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| ALL TOGETHER NOW: MAYBE THE DINGO ATE YOUR BABY |
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| Tasmanian Devil |
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| They were doing a feeding demonstration while I was there. |
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| Mom won't buy him a new pair of cargo shorts. Total bullcrap. |
GOLD COAST
The next weekend I decided to continue my solitary excursions and I headed down to the Gold Coast to take a surfing lesson. Gold Coast is probably one of the most popular travel destinations in Queensland as it is known for its stunningly beautiful beaches. I had been surfing before in Los Angeles with my Uncle John. If you get into the water on the West coast of the United States expecting to be warm, you have another thing coming. It was the middle of summer in Southern California and the water was like 50 degrees. I even had a wetsuit on and it was debilitatingly cold. I felt bad for my Uncle John, who is probably one of the manliest men I know, who went without a wetsuit. It took him out of action for the rest of the afternoon. Despite the cold it was a cool experience and I wanted to try it again.
Australian beaches are a bit warmer than Californian. Gold Coast is even home to a beach called "Surfer's Paradise", granted most surfers don't surf there. My lesson took place at a beach called "The Spit", which was up the coast from the Gold Coast downtown. There were only two other guys in my surfing class so the teachers were able to give us a lot of help. We mostly stayed in the shallow portion of the beach, catching waves in water that was waist deep. In California me and my Uncle just went out to where we were floating on our boards way offshore and caught whatever wave looked good, so this shallow water lesson was a good way to learn. I was actually able to stand up on the board this time. Gnarly. And I didn't get hypothermia.
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| Sand Pumping Jetty with the beach I was surfing on in the background. |
After my lesson I decided to walk down to Surfer's Paradise. You could see the city from the jetty so I figured it would be a nice 20 or 30 minute walk down the coast. It turned out to be about a 4.5 miles. Who can complain about walking a sandy beach though? Later on I found out that the tops of my feet can complain, or rather, they can get sunburn. It was a really nice walk. It's pretty amazing how much pristine beach there is. As someone who has spent most of his life in Upstate New York, most of the beaches I've seen have sand that ranges from large pebble size to large boulder size. Once I reached Surfer's Paradise, which is really like a designated swimming area, I headed into the city. Gold Coast is really......touristy. Which is great if you're a tourist. Which I was.
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| Getting sunburn 101 |
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| Gold Coast |
There's a lot of kitschy shops and open air restaurants. There was even a Ripley's Believe or Not with an animatronic band playing in the store front. I only walked around for a little bit because it was starting to rain. I went to a restaurant that seemed nice a got some food that sounded good, and it was. Turns out they call shrimp here "Prawns", so Paul Hogan was lying when he said he'd cook up some shrimp on the barby.
By that point I was tired and headed home after getting lost for twenty minutes trying to find a bus stop.
I think it's okay to get tired of being alone but it really shouldn't stop you from doing interesting things. Being by yourself it a great opportunity to try something. You can do stuff that you would normally not do in a larger group of people, like walk 4.5 miles of beach on a whim (accident). And when you finally come back to your friends and family you appreciate their company all that much more, and you have a unique story to tell. One of the guys who was in my surf group decided to take the lesson on an impulse. His wife and kids had just left town for a week or so and the first thing he did was to call the surfing company and signed up. I guess some would call it a mid-life crisis, but I would probably refer to it more as seizing the day.
Remember that most of the people you care about are just a call away.
And Rashida, if you're a reader, feel free to contact me at farturohaha@aol.com. WAIT! NO! Call Me.
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