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Published: July 21st 2011
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When the alarm went this morning, the first words out of Chester’s mouth were that we were headed to a pharmacy to get Kirsten cough medicine. We were not sure what we were doing today, we just knew that it was called the Savannah Walkabout. Our guide Paul picked us up at 9 am and we headed out of Melbourne to two reserves that promised koalas, birds and kangaroos. This was a true walkabout and really awesome. The tour company was Echidna Walkabout Nature Tours and they were totally professional and enjoyable. Paul was very knowledgeable and personable. He knew every kind of bird and could pick them out at the drop of a hat. We reached our first reserve to find Mary who also works for the company. She has gone out and early to look for koalas. She spotted two, so we all started out on the walkabout through the bush. We only had to walk about 20 minutes before we reached Ireland, a male koala who was not too happy to see us. He kept his eyes on us the entire time and was shielded a little by the leaves. After a few minutes we were off to
Kirsten
Trying to find koala find the female that Mary also found. The hike was great and we really felt like we were experiencing something new. We were not on a path and we never saw any others while we were out there. The female koala was awesome. She saw us coming and actually backed up on the branch so she could watch us and we could get an unobstructed view of her. She just sat on her branches and we watched her and took pictures of her for at least 10 minutes. We got the best koala pictures of her. We walked back to the van and now we were on the look-out for kangaroos. We reached an open field where they usually are, but no luck. So we drove around and Paul spotted a mob of them by a lake. Groups of kangaroos are called mobs and there were two mobs of at least 100 kangaroos each. We start off for the lake and Paul takes us through lots of brush and we are dodging huge piles of Emu and kangaroo scat. We had to kind of sneak up on the kangaroos and we are walking along a slippery embankment of the lake.
Now Paul doesn’t know how uncoordinated we can be, but we made it without falling into the lake, which we both felt one of us would have fallen into. By the time we get around toward the mob, they take off. We watched 50 of them hop away. This sighting was not good enough for Paul so we headed back to the open field where he believed they were headed, and he was right. We hiked at an angle to approach the group and they had all eyes on us. There were mothers with little Joeys in their pouches. Many of the Joeys were old enough to be out of the pouch but they still suckled from their mothers. We got within 30 feet of the kangaroos and just watched and took tons of photos. They were magnificent. They just stood and watched us the entire time. The huge male never stopped watching us. We followed them for a while so we could get different views of them and it was just a cool experience to observe the kangaroos in the wild. We got back in the van and drove around Serendip Sanctuary looking for more koalas and kangaroos and
birds. We would hop out and hike around several times. Not only was this tour one of the best we have been on the lunch was probably one of the best we have had since we started our trip. Paul made great sandwiches, fruit and tea. We even had our favorite dessert: cookies. Tim Tams to be exact. These cookies are amazing.
The tour ended with a last look at another mob of kangaroos and then back to Melbourne and the comfort of the Hilton. This is our last day in Melbourne and tomorrow we are off to Sydney!
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