Well, after being in Australia for three months and NOT seeing a koala and the closest to seeing a kangaroo being a road sign warning me that they may be crossing the road…this past Friday was time for a Friday adventure. So we took the day off school and work, hired a car, and hit the road for a place called Caversham Wildlife Park, which was about 45 minutes northeast of where we live in Femantle. Now, you’re just going to have to trust me that the first kangaroos that we did see were in the wild. And, it was (amazingly) Pam, who was driving, who saw them off to the passenger-side of the car. But, unfortunately we had packed the camera in with the bags in the trunk. Pam even got OUT of the car and attempted to get it but the three of them hopped away.
Caversham is a place that is like a zoo with native Australian animals in natural habitats. Some were expected…like the beautiful birds I’ve come to expect here:
But then there were some things that I didn’t even think would be there…
Like Bats
And a sleeping Tasmanian Devil
And a sheep shearing demonstration
Did you know that the whole fleece came off in 1 piece?
But by far the best parts of the day were the things I went there for. There was an elementary school tour going on, and I don’t know if we were able to ride on the coat-tails of their tour or if this was something that every visitor to Caversham got to experience…but we were able to get in and actually PET a koala and see a baby koala…check this out.
One cute baby
He likes my hat...
And speaking of babies…we eventually got separated from the tour group and I’m kinda glad we did because we wandered upon a zoo keeper who had taken the momentary quiet to bring out a baby kangaroo (joey…right?) whose mom had died in the wild and had been brought in as a rescue and was being raised at Caversham. My kids thought this was great…especially the fact that a pillowcase was serving as a surrogate “mama’s pouch.”
Baby Jasmine
Nap time
And then, after that, we all got to walk into a clearing where there were about twenty kangaroos just laying there and allowing you to come up and pet them. An unbelievable experience….
So, after three months…I finally got a chance to do what I wanted to do. Pet a kangaroo and see a koala! Great day with the family another unforgetable experience!
Unfortunately, there will be another unforgetable experience tied to the day. When we came back home we were unloading the car …and both my wife and I were still in the garage when I heard my son open up our screen door….AND WALK INTO OUR HOUSE. “But wait,” I said to myself, “he doesn’t have a key to the house…how did he get in there?’
And sure enough…he was able to get in there because while we were gone some jerks had used a crow bar to jimmy our door…get in…and swipe a bunch of our electronics. Two laptops…my backpack…and most unfortunately the backpack contained my backup drive which contained all the Australian pictures….
So, yesterday was spent buying a new laptop, getting it locked up tight, burglar-proofing our house…and uploading ALL the pictures to a Picasa account.
Here’s the last picture of an eventful day…an Australian police report and a DSL cable…dusted for fingerprints by a real Australian CSI!
They musta used gloves
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