Experiencing the wild life

I cannot escape the fact that this is definitely a business related trip. There's been a considerable amount of work (much of it stressful) and I've had to do hours upon hours of troubleshooting for a very finicky piece of machinery. Still I've been enjoying myself; and not just because I've done some of my best troubleshooting to date.

I got a chance to visit a wildlife park (really almost a petting zoo) and while this may seem like an activity for little kids, it was actually a nice chance to become acquainted with Australian wildlife without threat to one's well being.

Ballarat's wildlife park is fairly large with a nice assortment of animals. They have several Koalas which you can pet and cuddle under supervision (they're usually very calm but can hurt you if they're feeling threatened.) They're incredibly soft, giving them the look and feel of some kind of stuffed toy.
Cute eh?

From cute to almost repulsive...The tazmanian devil (largest surviving marsupial) looks to me like some kind of 'possum on steroids. I tried to get a good picture of it, but it wouldn't hold still. It just kept running around looking for food, gobbling, and then retreating to the darkness of it's den. No table manners and certainly not soft and cuddly.



Moving right along, I got a glimpse of some of the longest living creatures on the planet. No petting here, but somehow I'm not too disappointed.


And what else would you see in Australia, but Kangaroos!! They were quite friendly (they should be, they've been fattened up on food from all of the tourists) and they essentially roamed the grounds getting petted and fed by one person after another.



They mostly acted rather lazy, but the ones who were hungry would walk right up to anyone and let you pet them and feed them (mostly grains) without any hesitation.

Pretty fun, and there's more to come!