Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

So, I decided to do something touristy today. I went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary to have a closer look at some of the wildlife that this country is known for. There's a boat which leaves the city and brings visitors right to the park. Along the way, we passed a VERY large colony of the flying foxes I was telling you about before. There are many thousands of them roosting in the trees right off the river:







There are also some quite beautiful houses:



About the most interesting place to live I've seen so far is this cluster of bridges:



There are a total of 4 bridges in this photo, all right next to one another. The closest one, the cable-stay bridge, is a pedestrian bridge. There are 2 trestle bridges, both for trains, in the center. The furthest bridge in the picture, is a suspension bridge. The thing you'll notice are the support towers:





That's right...there are apartments INSIDE those towers!

After about an hour ride, we arrived at the sanctuary:





They have a large population of koalas. In fact, the sanctuary is the largest of it's kind. It was also the first of it's kind. Here's a koala now:



Another one in a funny sleeping position:



Also, this is one of the parks in Australia at which you can actually hold koalas. Here's me:



This is my colleague Toto, and his wife, Michelle:



They also have quite an assortment of other animals at this park. The coolest thing is their kangaroo and wallaby enclosure, where you can just walk up and feed the animals right from your hands:



Most of the ones here are the grey kangaroos:









There are also a couple of different wallabies you can interact with. This one seems to be called a swamp wallaby:



There's also this grey guy who seems to be pretty comfortable:



The wallabies are significantly smaller then the grey kangaroos, but are part of the same family.

Now, the red kangaroos are in a separated paddock. This is because they can get to be 2 meters tall, and, thus, are almost twice the size of the greys.





Wombats. They're kinda cute:



They're about the size of a basset hound.

This one really knows how to nap:



There were emus here. These are some chicks (note - they're still about three feet tall):



These rainbow lorikeets sure do deserve their name:





We also saw a raptor show. This one is called a sea eagle:







This is the wedge-tailed eagle:







Dingo!



Here are the flying foxes closeup. They do look quite like little foxes with wings:

Wheels!!

I was starting to get a bit ansty, not having a convenient way to get around the city. Plus, getting back from the supermarket with groceries has been a bit of a pain, as it's a good mile or so from the store to the new apartment. To remedy the situation, I've committed what might be considered a sin amongst bikers, and purchased a little, tiny scooter.





It's a fun little bike to ride, and gets me around fairly well. Plus, it holds 3-4 bags of groceries with no problems. This is what I've been missing...a bit of mobility.

Bats!

Ok. I was walking home from work last night, and was startled by this large, black object which flew by me. I realized, after watching it for a minute or two, that it was a VERY large bat. This guy was easily the size of a crow. Sadly, it is completely jet black, so a picture was out of the question, really. I'm sure glad they're fruit bats. (Edit: I've discovered that they're actually flying foxes. Look like oversized bats to me, though. Flying Foxes)


On a different note. The Melbourne Cup horse race was on Tuesday. It was amazing to me, as, in Atlanta, we don't seem to get into the Triple Crown races or anything, but here, the ENTIRE COUNTRY seems to stop. There's the crazy carnival they have for days in Melbourne. All the restaurants advertize specials. It's much like the buildup to the Super Bowl back home.

The company took us all to an expensive lunch. Then, the announcers start talking, and almost ALL of the people in this large place were crowded around the television. Then, in approximately two minutes, the whole thing is over. Just like that. At least the Super Bowl lasts a few hours for all of its buildup.

A Place to Live

Hey, I got a permanent place to live! Ed and I found a little three-bedroom townhouse not far from the office. Here it is from the front:



Here's the living room (My roomate Ed is on the couch there):


The dining room and kitchen:



The kitchen itself:



We even have a little courtyard and garden area. Hooray! We can have a barbie!



There are 2.5 baths, which is convenient - and hard to come by. Also, we have a lockup garage as well as parking on the street and on our private, gated parking area.

Here's a video tour (will be slow to load as it's 16 MB)

A rainy day

I didn't do much yesterday at all, as it rained almost all day. I did get some photos of the mountains as the clouds were clearing out:





The thing I'm missing most is a measure of mobility. It would be really nice to be able to range a bit farther from home to investigate places to eat and things to do. It's a bit expensive eating in the center of the city, and I've heard that there's a larger variety of cuisines in some of the other suburbs. I'm thinking about buying a little scooter to run about on. Also, it would be handy for getting groceries. Even when I get my bike here, it will still be handy for commuting, because my 800-lb motorcycle will be much harder to maneuver onto curbs for parking and such.

Bike Show

I went to the motorcycle expo today at the exhibition center across the river. It wasn't as big a show as you'd see back home, but it was a good opportunity to talk to some bikers about riding down here. I got some pictures:







More pictures here. I had an issue with my little camera that I didn't fix until about halfway through my time there so a lot of the pictures I took failed to come out, so I didn't post them all.