Koalas, and Kangaroos, and Wallabies! Oh My!

A continuation of "The Hills" tour with Carnegie Mellon...we saw many local Australian creatures at a wildlife preserve. Leading up to the moment, we were so excited to see our first kangaroo and koala in person! As for the kangaroos, I think we saw the rather tame retired ones because they would hop very slightly every now and then but only in an effort to pursue food out of your hands. Of course we have included a picture of Shawn feeding a kangaroo. If you were lucky, the kangaroo would place his paw on your hand as he ate out of it which was so cute. Shawn was not so lucky as he ran off too quickly with a nervous laugh from the ironically slow, harmless kangaroo...hmm. Then again I was too scared to try to feed the old guy! As for the wallabees, they are simply "mini kangaroos" and would hop around a lot in a quick fashion. All of the Americans from Shawn's school, us included, were so excited to see them hop in action. Felt like we were in the outback but not really...

Now, for the exciting part! Not only did we see koalas, but we got to actually "hug" them or really hold them. They had kind of ratty looking fur and were so ugly they were cute. While we held them, they munched on some leaves which was a good idea because I'm sure they would have clawed us otherwise. We were told that they sleep 18to 20 hours at a time...lazy little suckers. In fact, after we hugged our koalas, they went right off to bed in their very own trees.

Also, we got a chance to see the "Whispering Wall" which is the retaining wall of the Barossa Reservoir. At this wall, you can talk on one end and someone can hear you on the other end which is approximately 100 meters away (328 feet). We were skeptacle at first but we could actually hear people talking on the other side of the wall. If we were able to hear and understand some of Shawn's classmates who do not have English as their first language then we knew this wall was legit. How's that for acoustics?!


It was a really great day and a productive one at that!