The koala crossed the road.
With his funny bouncy walk
To get to the eucalyptus tree on the other side.
And climbed it pretty quickly.
With his sharp koala claws.
To eat the eucalyptus leaves that were obviously much better than the hundreds of eucalyptus trees on the other side of the road.
But apparently not good enough.
Because the really good ones are over there.
Just out of reach.
We went on a walk through the Australian rain forest. Matt found it very funny.
Many of the trees had big hollow parts at the bottom. We didn’t investigate too much because in Australian everything is venomous.
They also had slime mould.
And a really big tree.
Last night we slept under a koala. Can you see him?
Here he is hiding in the tree.
Finally after a long day we made it to Phillip island and to where the penguins live. At the visitor centre they have some burrows built into the building and a few penguins have moved in. Their burrow roofs are clear so you can see if they are home. Except there are spider webs on top so you can’t really. We couldn’t take any pictures of the penguins coming in, this was to prevent too much disturbance.
We got front row seats as the penguins came in. They swam in and popped out by the crashing waves, waiting for friends to come and form a group so they can all run across the beach together. They would run back into the water a few times because they thought it was unsafe and then pop back out. Once they decided it was safe they all waddled up to the bushes. Except one, who decided a seagull was a terrifying threat and ran back into the sea. He missed about 3 groups before he finally braved the seagull and ran across.
The slope from the bushes down to the beach was very steep, so they had to hop up it one at a time. That looked very funny.
Then they waddled up to their burrows. The elevated people paths went over the penguin paths, so we got to watch them. They don’t waddle as fast once they are safe in the bushes, they take their time.
Before we got to see the penguins we had one final stop at a farm. They were showing how to milk a cow behind us, but we’d seen that before so we watched the calf nurse instead.
They sheep watched. They watch everything.
They knew that they were going to get sheared like their brethren.
The sheep being sheared was pretty mellow.
Only the tools have changed. The pattern that you used to take off the fleece has stayed the same since they used manual shears.
Not all the hair is taken off so the sheep wouldn’t be too cold since it was fall.
Normally shearing is done in the summer but this is a show farm so they do it year round.
Sometimes the sheep was contorted a bit but it never really shifted at all.
Almost done.
There’s the final product. One fleece is enough wool for approximately two jumpers.
They were probably wishing a bit that they had jumpers.
Kerri then learned how to crack a whip.
She got it pretty quick.
The last demonstration was the herding using a sheep dog. This is the puppy who is still learning.
He was a bit rambunctious.
He did the job though, although got a little excited near the end and wouldn’t stop herding. Needs a bit more training and growing up to do, he is only 3.
