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Published: February 5th 2010
Fri 2/5/10
Mobbed by Roos
We arrived in Melbourne while we were finishing up breakfast in the Lido. Our tour didn’t meet until 11 so we had an easy morning listening to the announcements for the Emergency Drill the ship was doing with the local emergency squads as we uploaded the previous days blogs. There were fire engines etc on the pier and at one point we were evacuated from the lounge.
There were 2 buses for our tour and probably several for the earlier one as this was a sold out tour. It was called “In the Wild - Kangaroos and Koalas”. We were glad we had chosen the later tour since the weather was not great when arrived. Very foggy and rainy but by the time we left it was just a bit overcast and the temperatures were pleasant. Our guide was very good. He’s actually from South Africa but married a girl from Melbourne and they moved here a few years ago. He still goes back to Africa to do Safaris a couple months a year.
We started out for the Serendip Sanctuary about an hour of town. The first stop was to see the
Kangaroos where we found out that a group is called a mob. We started out slowly towards to the mob of about 40 and most of them hopped away leaving a female and joey in one area and the rest of the mob a bit further out. The guide cautioned everyone to stay together and not move directly toward the mob but rather like we were going to pass them. We stopped several times to let them settle down. There was even one joey who kept getting in and out of his mother’s pouch.
We spent quite a bit of time with the Roos then headed back to the bus to drive around the Sanctuary. We made another stop to walk down to the river to see the water birds. We were lucky to see many Emus and also magpie goose and Australian White Ibis. It was hard to get a picture of John with the Emus since most of them were on the other side but one groups was a bit closer so hopefully you can see them behind him. An interesting thing about Emus is that the mother lays the eggs and then runs leaving papa to incubate
the eggs and then raise them for 12-24 months. The ones we saw had 3 to 7 children with them.
We then stopped back near the entrance for Tea and British style pastries/cookies. They were very good. It was then time to head out to the You Yang Ranges National Park to look for Koalas. Our first citing was the Australian Army in full gear getting ready for some exercise. One of the researchers got on the bus to tell the guide where there had been Koalas seen that day so we headed out to find Smokey an older female Koala. We had a good look at her up in her tree and then headed out the other way to where the bus was going to meet us but on the way one of the people in our group spotted another Koala who turned out to be Merle the dominant male of the area. Koalas sleep about 20 hrs a day and usually change trees once a day. They move slowly except when changing where we were told they can climb the tree in 5 seconds. And that was about 40 feet up.
It was then time to
head back to the ship. We quickly changed and headed up to dinner when the Dining Room opened since we hadn’t had lunch. We were seated with a couple from Canada and one from New Jersey. It was another good meal where we both had the Peppercorn sirloin. John had the Derby Soup (light creamy chicken) and I had the Steak Soup. John also had the crab tower which he said was very good. Actually the food has been good so far. Dessert didn’t have anything chocolate listed but most of us went with the Bee Sting which was a pastry with vanilla cream and almonds. The plate had some chocolate sauce on it but not enough to make a chocolate dessert.
We then headed to the show for a comedienne/singer named Liz Layton who was pretty funny and actually quite a good singer. She kept asking what countries people were from and sang a song from most of them. The joke being a group from Pakistan where she did some English song and then later said it was because most of her Pakistani friends are from London.
All in all it was another good day. Today we
will be in Burnie Tasmania. Will report tomorrow on that excursion.
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Beth
non-member comment
Good wheather for you
Glad to hear and see everything is good, please continue to call Beth. It's the highlight of her day,(besides my dinner) Having problems posting this Blog, it's my third attempt. So hope you get this one, because it my last.