New Australian wildlife and forests day tour from Brisbane

http://www.learnaboutwildlife.com/daytourwildlife.html

Walk through koala enclosure at Daisy Hill

Araucaria Ecotours have just launched a new day tour from Brisbane:

Australian wildlife and forests

If you are  visiting Brisbane for a short time but wanting to see koalas, kangaroos, glow worms and birds and visit forests and waterfalls, you can join us at the Brisbane Transit Centre or your Brisbane  accommodation at 9.00am (bookings essential) for a day tour that combines all this and more

Our first stop is Daisy Hill Koala Centre, where we walk through an enclosure with koalas and take a gentle walk through eucalypt and teatree forests with a chance of seeing wild koalas and wallabies, as well kookaburras, parrots  and other birds

Into the canopy at Skywalk, Tamborine Mountain

Heading to Tamborine Mountain, we first visit Skywalk, where we get a bird’s eye view of the rainforest by walking (very safely) through the canopy, looking for birds and butterflies, admiring the tall trees and hanging vines, and whatever happens to be fruiting or flowering at the moment. We also have a short walk through the rainforest at ground level.

Then it’s on to an artificial cave with a colony of very real and happily breeding glow worms. The cave was built (and very convincingly so) to take the pressure off the wild glow worm colonies in our our national parks. We enter the first chamber of the cave to watch a film on their life history and use in cancer research as our eyes adjust to the darkness, then are guided in small groups through the glow worm colony. In warm weather we’ll also see a few eastern water dragons, the males bobbing their heads to indicate they own their respective little areas and ready to defend them against other males, and may also see little green sedge frogs clinging to the reeds by the creek. Taste some local wine if you wish before leaving.

Our next stop: a gourmet picnic lunch under the gum trees and an easy walk to a waterfall surrounded by rugged cliffs and eucalypt forest. In the warm weather we may see goannas (large monitor lizards) lumbering around.

Our final destination is Kooralbyn to seek wild kangaroos and wallabies, and possibly visit a fruitbat colony. The bats don’t always stay throughout the year but head off for a while to wherever has the best fruits and flowers). The kangaroos and wallabies however are year round residents, and we usually see plenty of them.

Whiptail wallaby and joey at Kooralbyn