A Dingo Ate My Baby

If you’ve ever had the urge to cuddle a koala bear, hand-feed hopping kangaroos or watch sheep dogs at work – you absolutely must visit the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary located on the outskirts of Brisbane, Australia’s third largest city. It’s a fun place for kids or adults and where else on earth can you interact so closely with native Australian wildlife? For only $20 a person you can hold an actual koala (mine was an adult male named Fitzroy) and have a professional picture taken with him. Fitz was pretty keen on chewing my hair as well as the eucalyptus leaves, but I forgave him since he was so damned cute.

There’s also tons of animals here you’d never see in an American zoo: Tasmanian devils, wombats and naturally, dingoes. I spent a good five minutes waiting for a zookeeper to come by so I could use my best Australian accent to tell him that “a dingo ate my baby” but sadly, it was raining and the zookeepers (like the dingoes) had taken to hiding where it was dry. In case you’ve never seen it that quote’s from Meryl Streep’s A Cry In the Dark – a fine piece of cinema based on the true story of an Australian mother accused of murder when her child is stolen by dingoes on a camping trip. So on that note, a list of my favorite Australia and New Zealand based movies:

10. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

9. Muriel's Wedding

8. Crocodile Dundee

7. Gallipolli

6. The Piano

5. Whale Rider

4. The Thorn Birds

3. Walkabout (1971)

2. Jindabyne

1. Rabbit-Proof Fence