Koala's, Roos and Emu's... Oh My!

Day 3 of our Melbourne adventure brought us to Ballarat for adventures at the Wildlife Park in the rain! We were lucky with the weather for the first couple of days. It was predicted to rain pretty much the whole time Twinnie and Drew were in Melbourne but the first full day was beautiful and sunny and we missed the downpour on day 2 while we were on the Great Ocean Road which was far enough south to have missed the rain. It caught up to us at the Wildlife Park though and I'm pretty sure we were the only ones in the whole park for most of the day. Equipped with umbrellas we ventured out to brave the wild (well not so wild because they live in the park) Australian animals!

We tried all day to get a good photo of the Koalas... who basically sleep for like 23 hours a day and don't move at all really. They are always curled up in little balls crammed between branches of trees so they aren't really much to look at but they're kind of cute even though they're supposed to be pretty mean!

The roos are free to roam around wherever they please and they are awfully cute. The signs about how to feed them, though important because they can get really big, I found hilarious. Don't pick up a roo! (Really?!? Would YOU want to try and pick one up? No thanks!)

While walking around the park we saw some Black Swans and one in particular did not appreciate Drew getting close to the fence it was behind! This particular swan seemed very territorial and paraded back and forth squaking (do swans squak?) at Drew. It was pretty funny. While watching the spectacle of Drew vs. Swan, Krissy had a surprise visitor come pretty close and strutted his Emu self right past her on the path. Emu's can be a bit scary! We also saw a rather angry group of Tasmanian Devils that made horrible hissing noises at each other. One even had a bloody nose from getting into a fight! Don't want to stick your fingers in their cage. No sir, thank you very much!

We had been looking for a baby joey roo all day at the park and happened upon a rather hungry group of roos as we were headed out. One of the lovely ladies happened to have a joey in her pouch who was quite active! You can see him wiggling around, getting a roo smooch, trying to escape and then being pushed back in again by his mama roo! So funny!

Our adventures in Ballarat ended with some hot chocolate and coffee before we made our way back to Bacchus Marsh to have a delicious home cooked lamb dinner a la Anna. It was great to catch up with Andrew's family and family friends Helen and Vin while Krissy and Drew were here. They had all met 4 years ago at our wedding in Boston but it was fun to have them catch up again and see where Andrew and Laura grew up. Thanks Anna and Ron for hosting dinner. The lamb was delicious and we talked about it all week up in Port Douglas! Such a treat!