Echidna Walkabout

We spent the day on a nature tour for Australian wildlife, specifically searching for koalas and kangaroos in the wild. It was a wonderful small group tour, just us and 2 women from Belgium plus our terrific guide, Janine. We started by driving to an area about 45 minutes outside Melbourne, to a nature preserve. We walked through the 'bush' (what we in the US call woods) looking up into the trees. It wasn't long before we saw 3 koalas sleeping high in trees, and what really made it interesting is that Janine was able to identify the koalas by name by observing their physical characteristics. Janine first located and pointed out Rainey, then one of the Belgian women found Merle, and then Bill spotted Baby Pat. After a delicious picnic lunch which included Billy tea, we set off to the Serendip Open Range in search of kangaroos. We saw so many that we couldn't even count them all! A highlight was when we saw a few females with their baby joeys peeking out of their pouches! It was an unbelievable experience to be right in the same fields as the kangaroos. We also saw emus at Serendip. We got up close to a nest which included 4 dark blue/black eggs, each of which was larger than a softball. No wonder, since emus are the 2nd largest bird in the world after ostriches.