Monday, December 29, 2014

Australian Enchiladas

This was the day we hooked up with the Echidna Walkabout Tour for the day. They took us to an animal reserve out in the "bush," about an hour and a half outside Melbourne. It was very rainy and a bit cold, but completely worth it.

Our tour guide Martin was amazing, knowing everything you could possible want to know about Australian animals. 4 months out of the year he also does African Safari tours. So cool.












At our first stop we saw a wild emu wandering around with a baby. Apparently emu's are raised by the father, as the mother disappears shortly after birth. Not often you hear about that happening in nature.
















After the emu's, we wandered into a giant open field to see the wild kangaroos just enjoying the rain. We could get fairly close before they got scared and wandered away. So cool.



  
In the midst was also a giant male that we named Arnold. He's huge!

 












After kangaroo chasing, we went to one of the giant ponds and enjoyed some bird watching. Birds are everywhere, especially the cockatoos. We even listened to the kookaburras cackling in the trees. They sound a bit like baboons to me. Australia is filled with over 700 kinds of eucalyptus trees, so the area smells amazing. At one point our guide picked a few lemon leaves from a eucalyptus tree to use for tea. If you are a tea drinker, you would have loved it.


We then stopped for a "bush" picnic, complete with sandwiches, fresh fruit, and tim tam chocolate cookies. Yum. Martin then made tea using the fresh lemon leaves he'd picked earlier, mixing it into the boiled water the old fashioned way.


Then we did some koala hunting up in the You Yang Mountains, which apparently are all granite. Martin's wife went out early that day searching for the koalas, and marked their location with a pink ribbon. She'd then send Martin the coordinates, we'd find the ribbon, and then scan the top of the trees to find them. They were just so cute and cuddly looking that I couldn't get enough of taking their pictures.





*











We took a few pictures from the top of the You Yang Mountains and enjoyed the view.

    













*

On our way down, we stopped to see a random critter along the road. Ironically, this little guy is an echidna, or as our guide referred to him, an Australian Enchilada. Martin grabbed my camera and leaned out the window of the car to take some pictures for me. He got some great ones too.














*

After that we headed back to the city where Brigid and I crashed for the night after a fun, but cold and wet day in the bush.

















No comments:

Post a Comment