Berkunjung ke Surga Koala dan Kangguru di Australia

main sama koala dan kangguru

Begitu sampai di Australia, gue udah kepikiran. Musti ketemu kangguru ama koala nih!!! Wajib!! Tapi dimana ya? Untungnya kita memang ada rencana untuk ke Brisbane, satu kota yang terkenal dengan kebun binatang dan tempat penangkaran hewan asli Australia. Yukk!! Di Brisbane gue dihadapkan ke dua pilihan. Ke Australia Zoo, yang adalah kebun binatangnya Alm. Steve Irwin, sang legenda pemburu buaya – crocodile hunter – yang terkenal banget itu; atau ke sebuah tempat bernama Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, yang nggak sengetop Australia Zoo, tapi lokasinya lebih deket dari pusat kota Brisbane.

Landed in Australia, out of a thousand things on my mind, one of them was ‘where can I find koalas and kangaroos?’. I know the answer would be a zoo. But which zoo should I go to? I am not a zoo person after all. Not because I do not like animals, but probably because the zoos I went to, were all in Indonesia where the animals were neglected. That made me mostly feels sad in a zoo compare to happiness.

Ketika disuruh milih, gue pikir di Australia Zoo pasti ntar ketemu semua jenis hewan. Sedangkan kalau ke Lone Pine, udah jelas ketemunya langsung ama koala, plus ada kangguru juga katanya. Lone Pine aja deh ya!

Lucky me, one of the cities we planned to visit in Australia was Brisbane, a gorgeous city with some famous wild life sanctuaries. I gotta choose between visiting the legendary Steve Irwin’s Australia Zoo, or a humble Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. I thought my main purpose was to see koalas and kangaroos, so Lone Pine made a better option. It’s also only less than an hour away from the city center. I didn’t realize that I actually chose a wonderful place, which became one of my ultimate favorite moments during my Australia visit.

berkunjung ke surga koala dan kangguru

Ada dua cara untuk pergi ke Lone pine selain naik taksi atau bawa mobil sendiri. Pertama, berlayar naik kapal kesana (naik kapalnya dari tengah kota loh) terus ditungguin ama kapalnya selama 2,5 jam di Lone Pine dan berlayar balik ke kota. Untuk perjalanan sekeren ini harganya ialah sekitar Rp. 750.000 per orang. Oh my, mahal banget yaaaa. Gue pilih perjalanan normal naik bus aja deh. Naik bus-nya dari tengah kota juga (bus nomor 445 selama kurang lebih 40 menit perjalanan) dan pulang pergi seharga Rp. 100.000 per orang. Untuk harga masuk ke Lone Pine-nya sendiri, sebesar Rp.350.000 per orang.

There is actually a cruising boat –cruising down the Brisbane river- that can take tourists to Lone Pine for AUD 68 person including the entrance fee, but I decided to take a bus instead. Bus number 445 from the city center took me straight to Lone Pine in the suburb are of Brisbane for only AUD 4.70 – one way.

Begitu sampai, nggak banyak orang yang hari itu lagi ke Lone Pine. Makin sepi makin seru… nggak desek-desekan ama orang lain. Kita di kasih peta untuk kelilingin Lone Pine. Hewan pertama yang kita temuin ialah burung kakak tua yang pinter banget. Jadi lucunya, burung kakak tua ini posisinya di pintu masuk dan keluar. Tapi kalau kita baru dateng, dia akan bilang ‘Hallo’ dan pas kita mau keluar dia bilang ‘goodbye’. Dia tau aja tuh kita baru dateng atau udah mau balik. Hehehe. Setelah melihat burung-burung keren dan kalelawar, kita ngeliat hewan langka bernama platypus. Ini hewan air bermulut pipih panjang dan memiliki racun yang mematikan. Baru sekarang liat platypus bentuk aslinya kayak gimana.

Dari situ gue ketemu sama beberapa hewan asli Australia yang nggak pernah gue liat juga, yaitu Dingo (anjing liar khas Australia), wombat (hewan mirip marmut tapi ukuran gede banget khas Australia), dan Tasmanian Devil yang cuma gue tau dari film kartun aja tadinya. Seru banget deh lihat hewan-hewan yang belum pernah gue liat seumur hidup dari jarak dekat.

Arrived in Lone Pine, we paid AUD 33 each for a ticket and were given a map to the entire place. I looked at the map and got very excited. Starting with some rare birds –> bats –> platypus (oh I only saw one in Discovery Channel!) –> dingoes –> wombats –>Tasmanian devils –> KOALAS –> kangaroos –> wallabies –> barn animals (sheep dogs) –> reptiles –> etc. O my goodness, I have never seen most of the animals which are all Australian origins. Hooray!

koala
this is a sleeping dingo..

 

main sama koala dan kangguru

koala

berkunjung ke surga koala dan kangguru

Setelah itu semua, AKHIRNYA gue masuk ke wilayah KOALA!!! Jujur ya, gue norak. Maaf ya. Gue seneng banget nih disini. Untuk info, Lone Pine di Brisbane adalah penangkaran koala tertua dan terbesar di dunia! Mereka memelihara lebih dari 130 ekor koala berbagai jenis. Dari yang tua, muda, bayi-bayi yang super imut, koala yang siap dikawinin dan lain-lain. Sangat menggemaskan! Koala itu hewan yang sangat jarang bergerak. Mereka kerjaannya cuma bengong sambil memeluk pohon seharian penuh dan TIDUR (ada yang tidur sampe hampir jatoh dari pohon). Makin menggemaskan! Faktanya, koala memang tidur sekitar 18-22 jam sehari karena satu-satunya makanan mereka, daun eucalyptus, adalah daun beracun yang bergizi rendah tapi berserat tinggi. Akibatnya, metabolisme nya koala jadi rendah banget sehingga koala nggak boleh banyak gerak dan harus tidur terus untuk menyimpan energi. Lucu ya. Enaknya disini, koala nya banyak banget. Jadi walau pada lagi bobo, banyak juga yang lagi bangun!

Entering the Koalas area, I was almost out of control. HA! I have never been so close to these cuddly animals before. We don’t have them in our zoos back home. For your information, Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary is the oldest (it opened in 1927) and largest Koala sanctuary in the entire world (it has more than 130 Koalas). It’s one of the few places where koala cuddling is actually still allowed since I heard it’s banned in New South Wales and Victoria. Can u imagine how ecstatic I was? The baby Koalas were absolutely cute. The adults were also cute looking. They were holding the trees, looking all sleepy, chewing the leaves, and some of them were sleeping with -almost falls from the tree- pose. The myth says that Koalas get ‘drugged out’ or ‘high’ on eucalyptus leaves and that’s why they sleep a lot. But the fact says quite differently. Koalas’ only food, the eucalyptus leaves, contain toxins and are very low in nutrition and high in fibrous, so they take a large amount of energy to digest. Sleeping for long periods (18-22 hours a day!!) is a strategy for conserving energy for Koalas. Interesting right?

Kita pun antri untuk foto sama koala. Sekali foto untuk satu orang harus bayar Rp. 175.000. Dengan harga yang cukup mahal itu, kita boleh foto pelukan ama koala pake kamera mereka dan pake kamera sendiri juga, sebanyak yang kita mau pakai segala gaya, dengan SATU SYARAT, selama si koala-nya bisa dan mau. Gue baru tau ya, ternyata foto ama koala nggak segampang yang gue kira. Jadi gini prosedurnya:

–       Foto ama koala itu sudah dilarang di negara bagian lain di Australia. Hanya wilayah Queensland aja yang masih membolehkan (Brisbane adalah bagian dari Queensland). Peraturannya ialah per satu koala nggak boleh diajak foto lebih lama dari 30 menit dan tiap tiga hari sekali harus istirahat total.

–      Kitanya yang mau difoto harus berdiri tegak sambil ngelipet tangan di deket perut, untuk jadi tempat koalanya duduk. Tangannya nggak boleh lemes, harus kenceng, tapi harus tenang.

–       Telapak tangannya gak boleh terkepal supaya koala nyaman.

–       Begitu koalanya dateng, nggak boleh tegang biar koala nya nggak panik.

–       Begitu koalanya didepan muka kita, semuanya terserah si koala, mau meluk kita apa nggak. Kalo dia mau, dia akan pegang badan kita. Kalau dia nggak mau dia akan taro tangan diatas dan mundurin badan tanda menolak.

–       Kalo koala udah nggak mau, cuma bisa nyoba lagi dua atau tiga kali. Setelah itu koalanya jadi stress dan nggak bisa dipaksa. Harus disayang-sayang dan dibalikin ke kandang.

The moment I had been waiting for arrived. I got to take photos with a Koala while cuddling it. How cool is that? Once we paid (AUD 16 per person), we can have some photos taken using their camera and our own camera, too. The THING is, taking a photo with a Koala is not as simple or easy as it sounds. First, each Koala is only allowed to be handled for less than 30 minutes a day. Second, you cannot force a Koala to want to take photos with you. Once it is put on your hands, it will decide whether it wants to hold you or put its hands up and pull its body back as a sign of rejection. Once it rejects a person, it can only be persuaded two or three times. If it still doesn’t want to, it should be brought back to its tree to rest. How do I know these things? Because there was a girl on our queue that was rejected by maybe 5 Koalas and had to go thru all the process I mentioned above. All of the Koalas refused to hold her. She had to wait for a long time. Even her parents who were ready with the camera got tired of waiting. She at first was smiling and found it funny, but then she looked like starting to question why they all rejected her. We were all questioning the same thing. Poor girl. HA!

berkunjung ke surga koala dan kangguru

berkunjung ke surga koala dan kangguru

Coba ya itu dibaca. Kasian banget ada satu cewek yang ngantri didepan gue. Begitu giliran dia, koalanya nggak ada yang mau. Dicoba berkali-kali dan gonta ganti koala, semuanya nolak meluk dia. Orang tuanya sudah siap motret tapi gagal terus. Tadinya dia ketawa tapi lama-lama mulai panik, mikir kenapa nggak ada koala yang mau ama dia. Hahaha! Kita juga jadinya nunggu lama sambil ngegosipin dia. Dia nggak relaks kali ya. Dia bau kali ya. Dia penyiksa hewan kali ya. LOL!

Pas giliran gue dateng, ah si koala dengan santainya langsung meluk dirikuuuu…. Awwww so sweet. Bulunya halus persis seperti boneka koala yang pernah dikasi pacar ke gue. Mukanya gemesin banget dan berlama-lamalah gue memeluk koala. I heart you, koala.

When it was finally my turn, I was asked to relax and made a nice strong hands position for the Koala to sit on. She didn’t reject me! Yeay! She held me comfortably. The thick wooly fur was so soft, just like a stuffed koala bear my boyfriend once gave me. I held her for quite a long time and took lots of photos with. Oh, so adorable!

Dari kandang koala, gue pindah kesatu tempat yang nggak kalah serunya yaitu tempat kangguru!

Next, we moved to the Kangaroo reserve area.

Kita bisa masuk ke tempat kangguru sambil bawa makanan kangguru yang dijual seharga Rp.10 ribuan per bungkus dan bercengkrama dengan kangguru selama dan sebebas yang kita mau. Ada ratusan kangguru yang dibiarkan bebas melompat kesana kemari. Di luar dugaan, mereka sangat ramah dan jinak. Nggak nonjok dan sama sekali nggak kasar (soalnya temen-temen gue yang gue ceritain semua pertanyaannya sama: “mereka nonjok nggak, liv?”).

Di otak kangguru cuma ada satu kata, yaitu MAKANAN. Hahaha. Jadi mereka ngedeketin kita untuk makan dari tangan kita. Lucu bangeetttt!!! Kadang bahkan ada yang nyolek minta makan. Beberapa jam gue habisin untuk duduk-duduk ama kangguru yang bersliweran. BETAH, sebetah-betahnya. Kalau nggak inget waktu, gue bisa deh sampe subuh disini.

We bought an AUD 1 bag of food and entered the place. SURPRISE! It was pretty much a Kangaroo heaven for me. There were hundreds of them, everywhere, jumping around, and ready to mingle with me all day long. No time limit, no restrictions. Up close and personal. For an Indonesian, I was out of this world happy. It’s such a relaxed environment to hand-feed the many kangaroos in a natural-seeming setting. I LOVED it! Apparently Kangaroos are tame, not vicious like people always imagined. They are polite and super delightful animals. They only had their minds on food by the way. Oh, I want to have them as pets in my backyard!!!!

berkunjung ke surga koala dan kangguru

berkunjung ke surga koala dan kangguru

berkunjung ke surga koala dan kangguru

main sama koala dan kangguru

main sama koala dan kangguru
kangaroo, close up

 

Di tempat yang sama ada juga wallaby (versi mini dari kangguru), anjing gembala, domba-domba yang bulunya dicukur, burung unta, dan hewan-hewan unik lainnya. Kayaknya nih, sepanjang hidup gue, mungkin ini adalah pengalaman ‘kebun binatang’ yang paling menyenangkan.

Selama di Lone Pine kita senyuuumm terus dan hepi terus rasanya. Bahkan gue sampai punya cita-cita baru yaitu bisa melihara kangguru di belakang rumah. Hehehe.

main sama koala dan kangguru
this beautiful place with purple tree is also here at Lone Pine

 

main sama koala dan kangguru dan burung unta jugaaa

 

berkunjung ke surga koala dan kangguru

berkunjung ke surga koala dan kangguru
this one is a photo of me and a WALLABY

 

Waktu udah menunjukkan jam 4 sore waktu gue nunggu bus balik ke kota. Ngebawa pulang cerita, foto (yang banyak banget!! Liat aja tuh foto diatas foto muka gue semua! 😀 ) dan dan pengalaman yang tak terlupakan saat berkunjung ke surga koala dan kangguru di Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Gimana nggak makin jatuh cinta ama Brisbane coba?

I spent so many hours with the Kangaroos, while putting a big smile on my face. Gosh, this Koala sanctuary was beyond what I had hoped for. I seriously was looking forward to go back there again one day, as soon as I left. What a beautiful way to spend a day in Brisbane.

 please leave comments and subscribe to my blog below guys! thank u:)

 

 Until one has loved an animal,a part of one’s soul remain unawakened – Anatole France

olivelatuputty.com –@shiningliv

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(1) Comment

  1. Bahasa ingris eLo hebring… mengapa bahasa indonesia elo berantakan? Apa tujuannya? Engga cinta pada negara sendiri? Tahu engga lo kalau ada banyak bangsa di dunia yang tidak seberuntung kita bangsa indonesai yang memiliki bahasa nasional?
    Salam

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