Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, Brisbane > Reviews > Best place to see Koalas in Australia

Author's product rating:   

Advantages:	full of koalas !
Disadvantages:	difficult location

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

In my 6 months of travel in Australia, I went to lots of zoos and wildlife sanctuaries, and one of my 'things to do' on my checklist was to hold a koala.
I decided to go to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary as it focused pretty much solely on koalas and their cousins, and I had heard that it was a great centre that had good hands-on experiences.
It was a bit of a struggle to work out how to get there without a car, but once we worked out what buses we needed, we headed over to the sanctuary.
A nice surprise was that although a popular destination, it wasnt over-crowded with tourbuses like a lot of attractions in Australia, and there were interesting information talks available all day, about the different animals they house.
If you like koalas, you'll love this place- there is LOADS of them! and they are sectioned into babies, mummys and grumpy old men koalas, which was unusual.
The highlight of everyones visit is of course the opportunity to hold one of the koalas and have your picture taken. For just 15 AUS dollars I got to hold 'diesel'- I had to stay very still so as to fool him into thinking I was just another eucalyptus tree, but once on he clung on for dear life as I had my professional photo taken! A big advantage of this attraction was that unlike other koala photo experiences I saw, once you paid for the main photo, you could take as many photos or video footag eon your own camera as you liked, and I did get to hold him for quite a while.
You also get the option of having either one big photo in a paper frame, or 8 postcards of your picture, which you can then send home. I chose the latter, although for some reason the filter on the camera made me look a bit like the chamboursey pink hippo, so I chose to keep the photos to myself! Another good reason to take lots of pictures yourself also!!!
All in all, a great experience. Remember, that the different states of OZ have different rules regarding the handling of koalas, and Queensland is i think the only one that allows you to hold them, so dont miss out!!