Kangaroo Sanctuary

We went to the Kangaroo Sanctuary today to meet the roos. The main focus of the place was education about how to care for orphaned kangaroos. It is the law in Australia that if you rescue a roo, you have to try to release it back to the wild if at all possible. The kangaroos there could not be released to the wild for various reasons and would be destroyed by the government if the sanctuary did not exist to care for them. A full grown male red kangaroo, raised by humans and not afraid of us, is a dangerous animal. They can disembowel you if they decide to have a little kickboxing match with you. A wild one would just run away and find another male roo to play with.

It was great to get up close and personal with animals you don't get to get close to in the wild. Everybody got to hold a joey. His name was Fidget and he was very cute.

A likes to impersonate whatever animals she meets. Here is her joey impersonation:

We went on a walk around the 50 acre enclosure that houses the 20 roos that live there. The guy who runs the place had a bucket of food and the roos followed us around. He'd throw down some food and we could pet them as they ate.

Some of the joeys still need to be bottle fed, so we got to help with that, too. All in all, it was a great time!

Frilled A

I'm going to do a series of pictures of A looking like the local animals, like she did with the wallaby. This time my daughter has embodied the essence of a Frilled Lizard!

Perspective

This gorgeous ghost gum tree lives in Trephina Creek, where we had a picnic Easter Sunday. To get a sense of scale, look down to the right of the trunk and you will see a little circle around E, who was standing nearby. And for a little fun, A helped me get this shot:

Same tree, different perspective!

Lizards and Geckos and Spiders, Oh My!

More wildlife has been spotted. This guy was sitting on a rock in our front yard just sunning himself.

A identified him as a Bearded Dragon. E got within a couple of feet to get this picture. He just sat there.

Most nights, if you go in the girls bathroom and turn the light on, a little Gecko or two come to catch bugs attracted to the light through the window. The picture is not great because it was taken from inside the bathroom thru the wavy glass. But, the cuteness shines through! I mean look at those toes!

E just looooves her reptiles. This is one of the geckos outside during the day. Usually we don't see them then, but I was separating some flower pots out on the porch to do some planting and this little guy was hiding in one of them.

And last and most hair-raising of all sightings, was this:

A and I were at the garden center looking at plants, and she was squatting down by this urn, looking at some cacti. She turns her head and hello! Redback Spider, one foot from her head. Mama spider was very busy with her huge egg sack and was no threat to us, but still!

A's reaction? "I thought they were bigger." Someone is outgrowing her phobia, for sure. She couldn't even look at the Black Widows in Vegas.

Golden Orb

While out shopping the other day, we spotted something amazing above us on the grape arbor. Can you see it?

Here, a closer look:

That there is a Golden Orb spider and she was huge and gorgeous. We have heard about the Huntsman spiders that are even bigger and fuzzy like a Tarantula, but have yet to see one. Not sure I am eager to, to tell the truth! In the airport in Sydney, they had a big poster on the wall that showed the 1000 spider species in Australia. We did not have time to stop and look and A was probably happy to pass it on by. She does seem less phobic about the spiders lately. Good timing, I'd say, now that we are here!

Joey Licked Me!

Last night, our sponsors took us to see the local wallabies that come down the mountain to be fed. That was the coolest experience ever! I don't know of any place that let's you feed wild animals like this in America. The wallabies were so tame, you could pet them: A looking like a wallaby herself:

The cutest thing ever was when a joey poked out of the pouch of it's mama:

This joey was the one that licked my finger when I went to pet him! He was so cute! We loved petting the wallabies because they have very soft fur. They would grab your hand when you held out the food for them. And they chewed it very thoroughly before getting more.

I can't wait to take our visitors to feed the wallabies!!