Kangaroo in the wild
Can you spot the kangaroos?
Kangaroos, Koalas, and Good Friends
The bldg we went to 88th floor and stood on glass floor.
Better wombat picture than previous posting
What a wonderful day!
In the morning we headed out to the You Yang Range to see kangaroos and koalas in the wild – and it was unbelievable. The koalas, which are very picky about what trees they will eat from, had a whole eucalyptus forest to chose from but will only eat selected leaves on selected (6 species out of 200 species of what the Australians call gum trees) trees so they were really hard to spot. Luckily our guide was in touch with some researchers in the park who had already spotted some so we got to see two. They look very cute and cuddly, but they sleep a lot and move even less.
The kangaroos were a whole different story. Our guide suspected that they would be hiding in some small trees on the edge of a large open grassfield (which they call a paddock) and once we got into the trees they seemed to be everywhere. We kind of lost count as to how many we saw, but it was at least 7 and likely more. Although these were definitely wild animals, they let us get within about 30 feet before they bounded off. Two of them had joeys ( the name for any marsupial baby) although one was out of the pouch and still nursing his mother. The guide said they don’t leave the mother until they are at least a year old, but this one looked like he really needed to be on his own. As an extra added bonus we also saw three white cockatiels with yellow crest in the wild.
When we arrived back at the ship we met our friends Nikki and Gerry, who live in Melbourne, for a very pleasant afternoon of lunch and sightseeing. We went up in the Eureka 88 building and went out on a ledge 88 stories above the ground and looked down through a glass floor on buildings and traffic below. We had about 3 hours together but it went much too fast and we hope to see them soon in the US to show them the Pacific Northwest – to include Mr. Buffalo. Melbourne is a truly beautiful city.
Tomorrow is our last full day on the ship but we will have a couple of days in Sydney before heading home. Because that last full day on the ship will be at sea, we will probably not do a post tomorrow as we expect it to be uneventful and we will be packing. We’ll try again in Sydney and maybe in Hawaii.
The Devil Made Me Do It 
We are looking forward to your take on Sydney now that you have seen the state capitals of Tasmo and Victoria. You have some good piccies of the wildlife; your Devil does look a friendly critter but as you say, best not to tempt them, those teeth look sharpish For your classroom followers: Tasmanian Devils in the parks are being carefully monitored and kept away from the wild population as the wild ones are suffering from a horrible disease that is killing them off and about 80% of the Devils suffer from it. Only by taking a few unaffected or partially immune animals into captivity have they been able to save the species from extinction (apologies, Jeff and Carol if you have mentioned this already and I carelessly missed it!). You are having a wonderful trip and your pictures of the NZ fjords brought back plenty of very, very wet, memories.
Yes we knew that but thought it was sort of depressing and not necessary to post. Evidently, there is hope as they are putting healthy ones on an island.