I’ll talk about the Koalas first, as those of y9u who have no idea who Bluey and Bingo are, can stop reading when I get to that point!

Following on from my post yesterday, I wanted to talk a little more about my visit to Loan Pine Koala Sanctuary. The sanctuary opened in 1927 with only two koalas and now have over 100! Personally I feel Australia has the best native wildlife, Kangaroos, wombats and Koalas? When visiting places where animals are, I do try to ask questions if I see the keepers, especially if it is an animal we do not have in the UK. I got chatting to Bella’s keeper. Bella is a common wombat and, almost unbelievably, are related to Koalas. Mind you, if you see their faces close up, you’d see how similar they actually are!

Other native Australian animals at the sanctuary included wallabies, kangaroos, platypus and Tasmanian Devil!

I absolutely loved my day at the sanctuary and I would highly recommend a visit if you find yourself in Brisbane. There is a bus from the city centre or parking on site.

Cartoon Dogs

We were introduced to the sensation that is ‘Bluey’ by our friend’s children. Keith & I watched every episode together, some more than once and we took the girls to see ‘Bluey’s Big Play’ in both Edinburgh and Glasgow. We both bought Bluey T-shirts and became perhaps a little obsessed. I even introduced mum to Bluey and fair to say – I think she quite likes it! If you’ve no idea what I’m talking about, yes, it is clearly a kids cartoon, possibly to about the age of six! However, I think the girls were 11 when they introduced us to Bluey and, to be fair, six is probably abut my mental age. However, I digress – if you’ve not seen Bluey, do yourselves a favour, and spend seven minutes watching the episode ‘Grannies’. If you don’t like it, or don’t laugh then you clearly have a mental age a lot older than six 😉

I’ll admit to feeling a little out of place in there. I was the only adult without a child or children with me and I could tell the parents thought I was weird. Yes, it was most definitely set up for kids. You start outside of the Heeler home and go through all the different rooms looking for Floppy, Bingo’s soft toy rabbit. The rooms have elements of a lot of the episodes, the watermelon rug is there and the kids can play in the granny cars out in the garden next to the nail salon (Stump Fest), the duck cake is in the oven and the pavlova is in the fridge! We walked through the garden shed into the creek and then we ended the experience with the Sleepytime episode and Bingo found Floppy and I was glad it was dark so nobody saw the tears running down my face!

Every room we entered I made sure all the kids and parents went before me, which actually paid off really well for me as I got a couple of minutes to speak to every member of staff who didn’t make me feel weird when I felt I had to make an excuse for myself by saying “just the one big kid here”. It is those type of interactions that help me to know that you are never too old to act like a kid in the right setting. It also worked extremely well at the end as every group got their photo with Bluey, Bingo and Floppy. I spent a little time chatting to the staff, and the girls there and, a bit like Disney, I think they know that you might only ever get to visit once, and they’ll make that visit the best it can be for you. The characters even cuddled Baby Budge and laughed when I forgot I was holding Floppy and almost walked off with her!

I finished the day with a wee hurl on The Wheel of Brisbane! A single trip was $25, twice round with a mini bottle of Moet in the ‘VIP Pod’ was more than worth it at $80. Seeing as mum had been “complaining” she’s not seen me with a glass of fizz in my hand for two days I knew I had to oblige! Well, so much for twice round, 14 times round and it had gone from being light to being a wee bit dark! At least I didn’t have anything planned afterwards or I might have been late! It did mean however that I got some amazing photos of the sunset.