Instant Adventures, day two

Day two we walked out of our apartment, around the corner and into Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary

The first thing we just absolutely had to do was ride the little red train. Everyone knows the most important thing about an animal sanctuary is the train of course. 

we disembarked at Kangaroo crossing to mollycoddle macropods. Lani very bravely putting aside the wobbly feelings she gets in her tummy around these guys after one of them wrestled her to the ground when she was three. 

Lilly had a ball sweetly smiling handfuls of feed pellets off the other tourists. I only saw as we were leaving the area that you had to buy the feed cup or I would have stopped her. 

Eli wouldn’t have a bar of the patting nonsense preferring to examine the drain pipe that fed the little spring and compare the length of the latest stick to the one he had found early. In fact he seemed totally oblivious to the big footed ones. Sabrina showed no such hesitation marching straight up to the nearest one and giving it a good old thump on the back (Mummy’s heart skipped a beat) followed by a hearty "Hello" yelled in its ear. 

In fact she got on with them so well that she went and got her bottle from the pram and after a quick suck…..

…stuck it in the stunned kanga’s mouth. Sorry I missed the shot but you get to see two seconds after when her ever protective sister pulled it out in a fit of giggles. 

This is Big Daddy Roo. It was one this size that grabbed Lani around the head with his surprisingly strong for their piddley little size forearms. This one was a real hoot he spent the whole time we were there draped across the ground, legs splayed displaying his ample manhood for young and old to see. He did rouse himself as we hopped back on the train. Quite literally as it turned out because, after shaking off the dust he reached out with those muscular forearms, grabbed the closes little grey female and as the train commenced the slow arch around his little mob’s feeding ground, proceeded to educate us all on precisely how Big Daddy kangaroos make those cute little joeys we had been oohwing and Ahhhring just before. So there endeth our kangaroo encounter amidst many muffled sniggers from the adult passengers and just as many persistent queries from their charges as to "What, What’s so funny???"

This emu fell in love with Lani, at least that’s what we’re saying I’m not sure if he loved her or wanted her for lunch. Now you must understand he looks little there but these things are huge, his head is level with mine. He came straight towards us with a determined glint in his little red eye. I tried to tell Eli and Lilly who had welded themselves onto each of my legs that if we were nice and quiet he would just pass us by. Only the pest made a liar of me.  He waltzed straight up the the pram I was attempting to push forward and shoved his grey chisel beak inches away from Sabi’s eyeballs.  My human shackles screamed hysterically as I tried to edge towards the front of the pram to shoo him away. Malicious intent or simple curiosity I wasn’t chancing that bird pecking my baby. He took my point and left off nosing around the baby but as he circled around the back of us he caught sight of Lani and made a bee line for her. There was a wildlife gate around the bend of the path, I told the kids we had to walk quietly and quickly towards it as he obviously wasn’t going to leave us alone. Getting them to move their petrified little bodies was another thing. In the end I pushed the two little ones in between me and the pram and bulldozed them all forward. Our friend followed. I glanced at Lani walking beside to see how she was coping and to my surprise she had the largest smile on her face.

"I think he likes me Mummy, he’s walking right next to me like my friends do"

I looked at the emu, he tilted his head to one side.

"Hmm" I said "Maybe"

"Guuurrrrr" said the emu.

Lets just keep walking shall we?

Eucalyptus smiles, I think there must be something potent in those leaves Koalas always look drunk to me.

These guys were great. They were a group of local indigenous dancers and while you weren’t allowed to take photos during the performance they posed quite dramatically
for you after. Their frantic dance moves and loud guttural noises mimicking the movements and calls of native animals were a bit much for Eli. Lani and Lilly even jumped in parts when the dancers flung their wide eyed bodies towards their seats in the front row. Sabi however delighted in mimicking their wild jerky movements and loudly parroted all the noises they made. They thought she was cute. We were the last in line for the last session of the day so the guys were in no hurry and spent ages winning Sabi over so she would stay with them for a photo. They tried with Eli too but he just shook his curly mop of hair and continued digging a tunnel under their rope barrier with his favourite stick of the day.

Then the cheeky bunch convinced the kids that Mummy needed a photo too. Lani took it with my SLR that she has never touched before. It was quite a Monty Python moment as she kept stepping backwards to fit us in and swaying all over the place because she wasn’t used to the weight. Our little group had to hurriedly shuffle… shuffle… left….shuffle….shuffle….right…tilt to have any hope of staying in the frame. The blurry shot above was the best one, the two guys in front are deep in concentration trying to pre-empt the next erratic move and the other guy and I are half crouched down and cracking ourselves up laughing.

Then we came across a man holding a snake. Lani had a go Lilly chickened out at the last minute and Eli drew a picture of a face in the sand with his stick.

Feeding of the parrots was at four, something Lani had been desperate to do all day as these guys are her favourite animal. She thought she was so lucky when these two landed on her hands.

She was over the moon when this happened., Eli was even thrilled which was great to see after his general lack of interest in everything else that day.

Would you like your bird served rare, sir??

Alfred shot a sidelong glance at his brother only to realize with growing embarrassment that he had turned up to the party totally off his face.

I know I know lame, but the kids crack up every time they see this photo so I had to include it. If you can do better leave a caption in the comments.

And that was that for the second day, oh other than a soak in the heated spa after dinner mmmmmm.