Sue and I started our day with a quick jaunt up Mount Sugarloaf, one of the tallest mountains near Lake Macquarie, and sight of many TV transmission antennae.
The walk to the lookout is much shorter than I remember as a kid, but still somewhat strenuous especially in the heat. There wasn’t anyone there when we arrived, or for some time after, so we had the butterfly and lizard inhabitated lookout for ourselves.
That second shot is of course no butterfly. It is instead a horse fly, and they can give a nasty bite so avoid them if you see them. They are hard to miss as well, being about an inch long. Yucky things, they are 🙂
After Sugarloaf the real adventure began. Today we went to Hunter Valley Zoo.
I can hear my brother asking right now “What?”. And the answer is there is a very small ‘zoo’ up in the vineyards calling itself Hunter Valley Zoo. Some may say the admission price of A$16 is a rip off. But to those people I say the following: “At how many other places can one do this…”
That’s a (super cute) Wallaby. Here’s some video of one of his friends:
And some of his distant cousins:
I was in heaven at this point. For some reason ever since I arrived in Australia this time I wanted to touch a kangaroo!
But guess what: it didn’t stop at Kangaroos!
Yes sir! Rosella feeding. The one on my hand was the parent, and kept nipping at my fingers when I tried to pat the baby. They were both very friendly though, and so close I could really admire their beautiful plumage:
Before you think the zoo was all about Kangaroos and Rosellas, I give you… Koala petting!
What Twilight Zone had we stepped into that we found a nearly empty zoo that let us just wander around touching the animals? Cute Australian animals too!
But but but but… amidst all this splendid fauna of terra australis, who ever would have thought the childrens petting farm could have been the best attraction? Don’t believe me? Then watch this video:
Until this day I honestly had no idea how much fun it was to hold a goat 🙂
Yes, I just kept picking them up 🙂
And so on, and so on. Here’s a bunch of other random shots from Hunter Valley Zoo:
And there was plenty more, including Alligators (which we got to touch), Pademelons, Thick-Knees, Ostriches, Emu, several types of Deer, an Ibex, Tasmanian Devils, many types of Monkey (!) and many, many, MANY birds! The zoo may be small, but it has heart and variety and given how close we got to many of the animals was just a great place to visit.
Right at the entrance, just sitting on a branch out in the open was this guy, a tawny frogmouth.
He’s beautifully creepy isn’t he. When I put the camera close to take the photo he leaned forward, almost as if begging me to touch him. Unlike most of the other animals today I declined 🙂