Gorge Wildlife Park

Our last day before leaving, we stopped at a wildlife preserve near Adelaide. I was hoping to get a better view of some of the animals we have seen or could have seen in the wild around Woomera (kangaroos, lizards, snakes and small mammals and marsupials.) The park mostly had larger mammals and birds.
The highlight of the visit for me was feeding the wallabies. They were a little bit timid when you first approached them. They ate very gently out of our hands. I could see having one of them as a pet. They are smaller and cuter than kangaroos.
Feeding an albino wallaby.

 

I love the coloring of this one. When we first showed up, the joey was outside the pouch. As we got closer, the baby bounced over to his mom and dove headfirst into the pouch.

This one had his eyes closed almost all the time.

We also got to hold a koala. Two handlers brought out koalas and a stash of eucalyptus branches for them to eat. The koalas contentedly munched on the eucalyptus leaves as they got passed from person to person.

 

Elsewhere in the park, there was a pen with koalas. This guy was actually awake, though sleepy. Accoring to this PBS article, to survive on their diet of nutritionally poor, difficult to digest eucalyptus, they have very slow metabolisms and spend most of their time sleeping when they are not eating. In fact, it is likely that their brains have shrunk to roughly half the size they were before the koala switched to a diet of only eucalyptus.

 Yawning