Sherman, set the WABAC Machine to the late September 2011 in Healsville Victoria Australia. Today we are going to visit the Healesville Santuary!
Healesville from Traveler Bill on Vimeo.
Sonny Boy (Al Jolson) / CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Whenever Traveler Nell and I visit her homeland of Australia we try to balance time with her friends and family with getting out to do particularly Australian activites. In our last trip we managed to accomplish both aims by visiting the Healesville Sanctuary with her parents.
Healesville is one of the locations of ZOOS Victoria and a place where you can have a “Magic Moments” encounter with a native specie such as kangaroo, wombats or koala. Guess which one I picked.
In the State of Victoria it is illegal for a non-authorized person to touch a koala so whenever you see a celebrity holding one they are in some other state. This meant my close encounter would be of the Second Kind.
But that was just fine because “Benny” was uncharacteristically awake and active, at least for most of the encounter. Now the traditional explanation for koalas typical torpor is that they are drunk from the toxins in eucalyptus leaves of which their diet consists. But that is an over simplification. In fact their metabolism requires so much effort to digest the gum tree leaves that they need to sleep immediately after eating. Regardless the reason, I thought it a good idea.
*Benny may not have been his name, though I think it is, I just don’t remember.