Australia Part II: Blue Mountains

Our second day in Sydney we ventured outside the city to Featherdale Wildlife Park and the Blue Mountains. We didn't want to worry about renting a car, and the train didn't go to the wildlife park, so we signed up for a tour with Dingo Travel. We got pretty lucky and turned out to be the only people on our tour, - bonus private tour! I cannot say enough good things about the tour we were on - Menashe was even better than the reviews promised.

Our first stop was Featherdale Wildlife Park, which is basically a petting zoo, only with crazy Australian animals instead of farm animals (which they also had, but which we didn't spend any time with).  Wallabys, Kangaroos and birds were roaming the property while koalas were hanging out in the trees. Our tour was perfectly timed - we were the first people into the Park, so got first dibs on the koala cuddling!

After the Park we headed to Scenic World to ride the gondola and walk around in the rare Blue Mountains rainforest. The Blue Mountains are named after the blue-tinted eucalyptus leaves that grow in this area. We were meant to go on a bush walk after a delicious Thai lunch, but it was raining so heavily that we opted to head home instead.  By then we'd seen and done so much that we were ready for a nap!

First!  So many animals.

With Rubin the Koala and his eucalyptus branch.

Koala selfies!

Feeding the kangaroos and wallabys.

I tried to feed the emu and it beaked me right in the palm!  Bottom row shows some of the other birds at the Park, including the Tawny Frogmouth on the left and the Little Penguins waving hello in the middle. I'm not sure exactly what one-eyed jack is, but he looks like he's recently retired from Azkaban.

Wombats and dingos and tasmanian devils, oh my!  Oh yeah, and a python...

At Scenic World.

After Scenic World, we went to an Aboriginal Hut, where we saw a traditional show. Somehow we both ended up on stage impersonating the animals we'd met earlier that day. I am attempting an emu while Robert is supposed to be a kangaroo (or a wallaby? I still don't know the difference).