Cudlee Koala

This past weekend I only had to work a whopping 5 hours on Saturday.  Granted, I did start at 6:30 am, it felt that I had a full 2 day weekend.  With this new found freedom, a group of us interns decided to go to "town", Adelaide.  To make the trip even more Australian and epic, we also went to see koalas and kangaroos in Cudlee Creek.  

A trip to Australia just does not seem complete without holding or at least seeing a koala.  Us St. Hallett interns, had not had the chance to do this yet, therefore were having an unsatisfactory time in Australia.  We had our fellow locals do some research and a place was found to HOLD koalas! 

Chillin with his homies.

So, I finished work and we were off to find this petting zoo somewhere in Adelaide Hills.  There was six of us, so we had to take two cars.  One car had to stop in Gawler. I was with Brooke and we also had to detour to get stuff from my house, so we decided to meet at this koala place.  Brooke felt that she had looked at her map enough so gave it to Paul, the other car, so they could find it too.  Brooke and I were on our way to the zoo when we reached a Y in the road…left or right? Brooke, being from this area, was the only one who could make an educated guess; we turned left.  Ten or so minutes later, down this very windy road, we find ourselves at a giant rocking horse.  On the plus side, PHOTO OP!, on the other side, we were lost.  Brooke did not memorize the map as well as she thought, so with our electronics and contacts we were able to figure out that we should have turned right at the Y.  To make sure the other car did not make the same mistake, I texted them what not to do.  Thirty seconds after I sent the text, we see Paul drive by us.  Timing.  We pulled over, called them; they turned around and pulled up behind us.  Brooke talks to Paul about where to go and we are off again.  Ten minutes later we are parked outside this cafe, which feels like the middle of no where, contemplating what to do.  No joke, right when Brooke gets out of the car to talk to Paul and admit that we are lost, it starts to rain.  Rain makes situations seem so much more dramatic, be it a happy drama or lost drama.  Now we are searching for these koalas, in the middle of random hills, making twenty 3-point turns trying to find this park, in the rain.  The roads are windy and wet, we have no cell phone service, and it seems the koalas are out of reach…

Kangaroo Whisperer

Thank god they weren't!! We arrived at the park at 1:28 and the koalas came out for holding at 1:30.  Can someone say timing? All of us had huge, genuine smiles on our faces when the koalas finally made it into our arms.  If anyone watched the Big Bang Theory, Sheldon has a "Koala Face".  We all had that "face" on.  To add to the epicness of holding a super cuddly creature, we got to feed and interact with wallabies and kangaroos!  A little intimidating at first, but you warm up to them after a while.  I got some heart melting pictures of Brooke with the animals.  A serious kangaroo whisperer that one is.  

The zoo had an interesting assortment of animals.  There were the typical Australian kangaroos, koalas, echidnas, dingos and emus.  But then there were bats, monkeys, panthers, and camels… We did see a monkey grab some ladies hair and it was hilarious, so I can't bash on the monkeys too much.

Paul, Brooke, Carissa, Me and Kim at the Zoo!