Volunteering with Australian Animals at Cooberrie Park

 

If you go back to our first post on The Travel Hack, one of our travel hacks when travelling in Australia is volunteering. You get the best experiences with a twist, and we have to practice what we preach, right? So off we went to volunteer with gorgeous Australian animals at Cooberrie Park…

About Cooberrie Park

Cooberrie park is a wildlife park situated in the neat seaside town of Yeppoon, 30 minutes from Rocky (or Rockhampton to those unfamiliar with the Aussie need to abbreviate). It’s a wonderful family run business caring for Australian animals. It was bought 10 years ago on a venture to restore the failing and has been rescued and turned around into a remarkable place, providing a home for a range of native wildlife.

 

We offered our time and volunteered for this lovely organisation for one week. We spent the week helping, shovelling, feeding, petting and learning about the fascinating animals. If cuddling koalas was a job, we would be first in line!

A perk of the job was getting to know the cheeky and comical animals in the park, including a head-butting pig, playful cockatoos who tap you on the back and hop away, kangaroos who love to chase you for the food, and a Galah Bird who liked to get tangled in hair and laugh at us whilst we attempted to feed them. Other favourites were Bubbles & Ricki, adorable and friendly little marmoset monkey’s.

The week was eventful, surprising and great fun!

 

We were lucky enough to get to feed a little joey whose mother had sadly passed away. He certainly loved his milk and the attention we gave him!

We also got up close with pure breed Dingo’s. They are super playful animals with interestingly similar characteristics to cats. They are also tricky to train but each has their own distinctive personality.

Volunteering with the Australian animals was one of our goals whilst living and exploring this beautiful and vast country, and it was an unforgettable experience.

 

 

We learned a lot about Australian animals during our time volunteering at Cooberrie Park. Here are our top 10 facts about Australian animals…

Top 10 facts all about our furry friends in Australia

 

1. The name Koala is an aboriginal word that means ‘no drink’ as Koalas rarely drink water due to the amount of water they get from eating eucalyptus leaves.
2. Koalas are very fussy eaters and only eat about 34 of the 700 species of eucalyptus.
3. Koalas sleep up to 20 hours a day and are territorial animals.
4. Koalas have two thumbs and three fingers so they can grip the branches well.
5. Cassowaries are a key stone species which disperse seeds throughout the rainforest through their droppings which re-vegetate the rainforest.
6. Cassowaries are also the most dangerous bird in the world causing injury by disembowelling using their powerful feet and claws.
7. Cassowaries lay big green eggs; they look a little like watermelons. The male always guards the eggs until they are ready to hatch.
8. Kangaroo’s are marsupials and belong to the macropod family which means big foot.
9. A baby Kangaroo is called a Joey; a male is called a Jack and a female is Jill.
10. Pure bread Dingos are now very rare, the dog-like animal cannot bark but howls like a wolf.

A huge thank you to Cooberrie Park for an incredible week, endless interesting knowledge and we hope to come back one day soon!