photo-heavy Featherdale post

Yesterday we went to Featherdale animal park, and I tell you, wrangling three sheep and a camera is beyond my capabilities. Lulu tried to charm the Cassowary out of his pretty neck piece.



With no success. Her wiles are wasted on flightless fowl.

Bobby charmed a kangaroo (or maybe it was a wallaby. I’m not sure.) But she gave him a kiss.


And Bucky had hold of the pen and note pad and was taking notes furiously. I think the ramporter is working up to another post. If you give him feedback, it only encourages him.


We saw a kangaroo mom with a joey in her pouch. My gosh that looks uncomfortable!



We saw wombats. Remember Lilo and Stitch?. Stitch had to have been a wombat. They are not even-tempered, merry little sprites, let me tell you.

We saw more birds than you could click a lens at. I took 135 photos.













We saw a snake eating a mouse. If you want the photos, I’ll e-mail you. I thought it was just fascinating, but not everyone is so oddly amused.

We even saw the ghost bats, which I can see would freak you out because they are just pale enough to be a flicker of something in the dark. If you were even the tiniest bit superstitious … Ooooooweeeeeeooooooo!

Then we went to a wonderful open-air shopping mall for lunch and the fixings for dinner. The bakeries enchant me. The fondant-covered cakes look too pretty to be real, and every conceivable fruit has been put into a “Slice.”


Then Janette and Marc took us to their home for a quiet, comfortable, low-key afternoon. The guys watched TV and went for a walk. Janette and I knitted and looked at knitting books and I lusted after her gorgeous stash. She has a whole room with professional wire mesh bins up to the ceiling and yarn, yarn, yarn everywhere except for where she has books. It was a little slice of heaven!!

The sheep helped us look at books.




Janette’s beautiful and sociable cat, Chloe still reserves judgement on the sheep.

Marc barbecued some steaks, Janette sautéed some mushrooms, made a salad, and made potato croquets, and we feasted. Oh, and we had a grand bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, which poor Marc couldn’t have because he had to drive us back to the hotel. It was a damn shame!

I was fading fast after such an eventful day, so we got back to the hotel just about sunset. Did I mention that there’s a park just across the street? With lots af lovely big trees? DH’s sharp eye caught movement and he gestured up. The fruit bats were unfolding and taking off for the evening foraging. I stood stock still in the middle of the sidewalk while busy people tried to get past me, staring in amazement at something that, for them, was as common as city pigeons. Fruit bats, (or flying foxes,) are ginormous black bat!. They look like extras for every Bella Lugosi film ever made. They look like they could carry off small dogs. They’re actually harmless, but the monkey in my brainstem doesn’t trust them at all.