Tales from Oz

If you are not interested in wildlife, or cute, fuzzy animals, stop reading now, as this is what this post is all about! We love cities as much as the next person, but I find them a bit fatiguing at times, and realized that we have really enjoyed our experiences in the nature.We had a most excellent day driving a short way out of Melbourne, on the Great Ocean Road, and saw the most varied amount of wildlife of the whole trip,all in one day.
As I was taking a photo of the bird above, two parrots flew down and one landed on the shoulder of the man two feet in front of me, then another one landed on my shoulder! I was so unnerved and excited that I hardly knew what to do. That may have been the highlight of the day. Of the trip, even.
A little way up the road, the koalas love to hang out and sleep in the trees. We saw many along this road, most of them curled up in the branch of a tree. Also very exciting.
We saw a mob(?) of kangaroo later in the day, and although we saw a few earlier in the trip, this was the biggest grouping that we saw. It was very cool and I felt like I was on safari, except that there were no large animals that might attack .
As we we drove through another rain forest, we came even closer to the koalas, and one was eating up in a tree, totally oblivious to the fellow with a camera, not more than 4 feet from him! Jim said it is amazing that they are not extinct. I had seen these fellows at a wildlife center on a previous trip, but it was nothing compared to seeing them in the wild.