Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

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The storm from the previous day continued throughout much of that night, however we woke up to clear bright blue skies, perfect to visit the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. We got there not long after opening to give us plenty of time at the zoo and to hopefully also do some things in the evening that we were unable to do the previous evening due to the rain. Though the zoo is not very big, we spent quite a long time there to see it thoroughly and at a relaxed pace.

The first enclosure that we got to upon entry had a couple of the species I particularly wanted to see there which were a couple of Black and Little Red Flying Foxes mixed with a large group of Grey-headed Flying Foxes in a fairly large aviary.

This was then followed by a row of many aviaries housing the vast majority of the zoo’s bird collection which were mostly a variety of parrot species with my personal highlights being Golden-shouldered Parrot and Gang-gang Cockatoo. The enclosures were all fairly standard, none particularly large or small with nothing special about them at all. At the end of this row of aviaries was the Platypus House which we went into shortly, however I decided first to have a look at the Tasmanian Devil enclosure which was several pit-style enclosures that could be connected or separated. When I was there they were all connected and several devils were lying prominently in the sun. Also next to the Platypus house was another aviary with Bush Stone-curlews and Laughing Kookaburras, though the former seemingly a rather pointless addition because not more than five metres away in a flower bed were two wild Stone-curlews just sitting there in a similar fashion to the Brisbane Botanic Gardens two days ago!

We then went into the Platypus House which was fairly large and another of the main reasons that I wanted to visit Lone Pine because although I had seen a Platypus on my first day in Queensland at David Fleay Wildlife Park I still wanted to see them again and possibly get a better view. At the entrance to the Platypus House is a skeleton of a Platypus which was rather interesting, and I was pleased to note that this was significantly brighter than in the nocturnal house at David Fleay where they displayed their Platypus so I hoped to try and get some pictures here. There were two Platypus, one young male and one old male and I was told at the Platypus talk (later in the day) that they were both bred at Healesville. Both enclosures were large and natural with rocks and logs and things making them pretty much excellent though I doubt any zoo would be able to get Platypus if the enclosures weren’t any good. Also excellent was the fact that both Platypus were extremely active swimming around the enclosure a lot and foraging in the rocks at the bottom as well as sitting up on the surface and even rolling about in some half submerged palm fronds, seemingly playing. Each enclosure also had several large crayfish which the Platypus were hunting and eating and it was very interesting to watch this behaviour.

Although the Platypus were of course the main highlight here, the opposite wall of the building had a row of snake enclosures which I believe were temporary for a reptile house to be built/refurbished. The enclosures were all very small particularly for a large and active Black-headed Python however several of the species there were new to me including Collett’s Black Snake. A full species list of the zoo can be seen here, and the first six reptiles on that list were in this building.

Continuing on out of the Platypus House we came to two enclosures that seemed fairly standard for their inhabitants however not very aesthetically pleasing, particularly compared to the rest of the zoo which were one for Dingoes and one that I found rather interesting containing both Southern and Northern Koalas (or if split into three subspecies, New South Wales, and Victoria Koalas) which were very different looking when right next to each other.

Continuing past enclosures for Barking Owls, a Golden Brushtail Possum (golden morph of the Tasmanian subspecies of Common Brushtail Possum), a turtle pond signed for Mary River Turtles but containing two species, neither of which was those, and the other side of the Tasmanian Devil enclosures we came up to the main Koala area which had several enclosures, some extremely large in size and others very small with easily over a hundred koalas combined. Though more interesting to me than the many koalas, were three nearby enclosure for monitor lizards, all quite large and seemed to suit the needs of the species that they contained quite well which were Perentie, Merten’s Water Monitor, and Lace Monitor.


We had now seen most of the enclosures in the first half of the zoo, though two further ones of particular note were the Cassowary enclosure and Freshwater Crocodile enclosure which also had several very large Mary River Turtles and what appeared to be hatchling Water Dragons (I saw a large wild Water Dragon near here as I was leaving the zoo). And in the zoo restaurant were enclosures for two frog species and a Broad-headed Snake which could be very easily missed (also worth noting that the restaurant walls were covered in pictures of famous people who had been to Lone Pine and had their pictures taken with Koalas). The other part of the zoo though was pretty much just two huge walkthrough macropod enclosures with some other stuff in them as well. There was a bit of a gap between the two parts of the zoo though which was just a small patch of trees along the Brisbane River which the zoo borders where there were a few fairly common birds, namely Grey Butcherbird, Rainbow Lorikeet, Scaly-breasted Lorikeet, and Noisy Miner. Continuing to the first of the two large walkthrough paddocks, the zoo had quite a different feel here and it was much more open rather than the other part which had enclosures all much closer together. The entrance to this was through the zoo’s domestic area called 'The Barn' which just had a range of typical domestics in an open barn thing, though one field did have a herd of sheep and several domestic dogs which were obviously for the sheep display. Also here I noticed a sign advertising the zoo’s free WIFI, and sure enough there was zoo-wide WIFI access. Going through the barn area came into a huge paddock

with a few macropods free-roaming around, though it seemed to be very sparsely populated with not so many individuals of three species namely Red Kangaroos, Swamp Wallabies and one species that is still unidentified! Though the space provided was huge, there didn’t seem to be as much shade and shelter as there could be. Also of interest to me in this enclosure were three Masked Lapwings, allowing me to finally get a picture of the species which I had so far only seen from cars. Also within this paddock was a pond (that had badly burst its banks and gone into the grass due to the rain) with an island in the middle with an injured Wedge-tailed Eagle that couldn’t fly, and the bird of prey show area was also within this paddock. I wanted to see the show, mainly because these types of show often have species that are not otherwise on display, but there was still a fair bit of time before it started so we decided to explore the rest of the zoo first, mainly the other kangaroo walkthrough. Although the two enclosures shared a fence, there was no direct access between them, so you have to go back out and around to get to it. This enclosure was similar to the other, though with a lot more animals (as in individual animals rather than species) in it of a mixture of Grey Kangaroos, Swamp Wallabies, Red-necked Wallabies, and Emus. And just inside the entrance were enclosures for Southern Hairy-nosed Wombatsand Short-beaked Echidnas and one of the wombats was lying in a rather funny way on its back. Two further things worthy of note from this enclosure were many wild Rainbow Lorikeets stealing food from the Emus and I even got a picture of one riding on an Emu’s back,

and also a huge Eucalyptus plantation on the other side of a fence from this enclosure presumably for the sole purpose of feeding the ridiculous number of Koalas.

A bit later we went to the bird of prey show which I was pleased that I had gone to because there was a White-bellied Sea-eagle which was a new species for me and after lunch that was pretty much the whole zoo done. After lunch I went to check a few bits to make sure I had seen it all thoroughly and also to have another look at some bits I particularly liked including quite a long time watching the Platypus before we left the zoo in the mid afternoon. So I had first seen one captive Platypus in David Fleay, then two in better light in Lone Pine so the next step of course was a wild one… tomorrow maybe?

But I’m getting ahead of myself, tales of wild Platypus will come later. So we headed back to our accommodation in the centre of Brisbane itself and since there was a fair bit of daylight left, we went to the Roma Street Parklands which were just around the corner from us. We would have visited the previous day if it wasn’t for the weather, but these are pretty much a Botanic Gardens thing which apparently are very nice. And they were indeed nice with lots of weird and wonderful plants, viewing decks, raised walkways, and other parky-stuff like that, as well as loads of wild Water Dragons in the water features and a few birds including lots of Australian White Ibis and a new bird for the trip after no new bird species seen the previous day which was a Figbird.

That night we had dinner as early as possible and also went to bed as early as we could because we knew the next day would be a ridiculously long one starting with a 3 AM wake-up to catch a flight to Cairns.

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