Day 38 - My Birthday

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So this time last year it was snowing! Now it is sunny and about 30̊. Although my Birthday did go from being in the Spring to being in the Fall (or Autumn as they call it here) so I think I traded down.

For my Birthday Regan (Ryan’s sister) drove up from Sydney, a 2 hour drive. The 3 of us went to a park called The Blackbutt Reserve. It is a free national park, you have to pay $5 for parking for the whole day but someone gave us their ticket. So it was free fun for all.

The Blackbutt Reserve has Koala Encounters every day at 2pm (these are $3.50 per person) where you get to pet them and take pictures with them.

So we got to the park around noon and we wandered around. Past the picnic areas, and into the Wildlife Exhibit. We were following the signs to the Koalas.

We passed a habitat that looked like it was for Wombats but only had peacocks. Then we walked past a hillside with ridges and cliffs that according to the sign had some sort of Kangaroos... we saw none. Then we followed the elevated board walk to the aviary display. Once we were inside we were kind of bored “cool birds... look at that one in the pond...” yawn then I noticed on the other side some grey furry things sitting in trees! There were 3 Koalas and you could get within maybe 5 feet of them! While we were watching them sleep, reposition and scratch another one ran out from a hut under the board walk and jumped onto the tree. This one was pretty active for a Koala and then we got to watch it poop! Very exciting!

I think if people ever have trouble falling asleep they should watch Koalas... they made us very sleepy.

We then walked through some more bird exhibits, yawn, and on to the cottage to buy our tickets to the Koala Encounter! We came across a sign that read “There will be no Koala Encounters on Tuesday March 16 Due to Staff Training”!!! The one day! So we had our picnic lunch while the mosquitos had theirs, us! And we walked down another path to follow the signs for Kangaroos.

We passed a woman with 2 small kids feeding ducks and swans at a pond. They were giving them huge chunks of white bread, they were feeding them so much that the ducks had swam away and the bread was just floating on the pond. At least the ducks were smart enough to know not to eat that much!

We found Emus! EWWWWWW! That is the ugliest creepiest bird EVER!! But in their habitat were a ton of Kangaroos who didn’t care about us and didn’t want to come near the fence. They looked cool in the distance...

So then we went back up to the Koalas to say good bye. And we passed the Womabt habitat that had a Womabt this time! It was pacing back and forth in a 3 foot path... we think it may have gone crazy. Then we came back to the hillside and found a black Kangaroo. He looked old and moved very slowly. When we went back to the Koalas there were 5. So we hung out watching them until we got tired and went home.

So although I didn’t get to pet a Koala I still had a lot of fun and FINALLY saw a Koala!

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