Rainforestation has a few more sections which include a duck boat tour which is supposed to be interesting, but due to the heavy rains prior to arrival, those tours weren’t running (Ditto with the Kuranda River Cruises located near the train station). There’s another area where you can pay to have your picture taken while holding a koala which we did. Queensland is one of the few remaining states in Australia that actually allows you to hold one. NSW and Victoria do not, so you can’t hold one in either Sydney or Melbourne. And yes, koalas are as cuddly and soft as they look. It’s worthwhile to note that at this location they did not allow pictures with personal cameras.
There’s also a kangaroo feeding/petting area where you can purchase food and feed them, but although the kangaroos were jumping around, we decided to catch the shuttle back to town since they run on the hour, skipping the lunch hour, so we would have been stuck for too long. Besides, there was a similar type place in the center of town where we could do the same.
Back in town, we made our way to the Butterfly Sanctuary. The main reason to go was to see the electric blue Ulysses butterfly that’s native to the region. As it turns out, we saw them in the wild as well so it was kind of a waste to go, but the kids really enjoyed going into the aviary and having hundreds of butterflies flying around.
Our next stop was the Koala Gardens where we bought some food to feed the roaming kangaroos. However, unlike the ones at Rainforestation, the ones here were all just lazing around and not interested in our food. They also have a small zoo, plus you can hold koalas here as well. But unlike before, they allow you to take pictures with your personal camera. So if I had to do it over again, I would have done the opposite; fed the ‘roos at Rainforestation, and held the koala at the Koala Gardens.
lazy 'roos
Topic Wiki
