Aussie Tales 2

Thursday was our scheduled tour day. We climbed in a 4x4 bus - which was so old and sounded to creaky I was afraid we'd never make it home! Our first stop was a wildlife sanctuary which was amazing!!! This place was built to house rescued animals and you could actually pet a lot of them which was pretty cool. Here Mack is holding a rock bird, and I tell you this was one grumpy looking little bird!

We were able to get ice cream cones full of food and feed the animals, check out this little guy! Adorable!

One of my new favorite animals is the wombat. I mean seriously, how could you look at this adorable little face and not want to squish him and smother him with kisses!!! To be honest this might be me missing another little squishy nosed boy who we had to leave at home :)

Ok - so this next one was a shock! Did y'all know that there are white peacocks?? I think this was one of the most stunning birds I have ever seen. Just breathtaking.

And of course his more widely recognized cousin, also beautiful!

After leaving the wildlife sanctuary we headed up into "the bush" for some 4x4ing and a little bit of walking around. It was just beautiful and our guide was well versed in all the types of trees and flowers so it was pretty interesting as well. About halfway he let all of us out and then drove on so we could walk bit and meet the bus.

We drove around for a while enjoying the sights, then headed to lunch at the botanical gardens. Lunch was very nice, a beautiful view and free wine - can't get much better than that!!

After that it was finally off to the blue mountains! So the deal with the blue mountains is that they are covered in eucalyptus trees which give off oil. The oil hovers in the air and the way the light refracts is what gives them a bluish appearance. Of course whether you see blue or just plain old green all depends on the wind conditions, temperature, and where the sun is in the sky. I suppose for us they were in the slightly bluish category: