Australia; The Healsville Sanctuary

This weekend we were able to go to several places as a family, one of which was called "The Healesville Sanctuary" This place housed animals native to Austrialia, so it seemed like a great place to go to see Austrailian wildlife!

We did several very cool things in the sanctuary. We fed and petted Kangaroos, watched an incredible bird show, interacted with wild dingos... It was pretty awesome to say the least. Here are some pics I took of the animals living in the sanctuary....

First off, I have to mention the eucalyptus trees. There were hundreds of these trees in the sanctuary. There were some which were hundreds of years old.

The Kangaroos. They had two types of Kangaroos at the sanctuary.

The one on the left was a grey kangaroo, and the one on the right is called a red kangaroo. Don't ask me why they called a grey kangaroo red and a red kangaroo grey. All I know is these two were the fully grown males, and they were about 7 foot tall standing up straight. 0_0


We also got to see the Tasmanian Devils out running around. This was a really cool thing, because they are normally nocturnal animals. I will say while they do look rather harmless, they are fast little guys. Very fast.

This was one of the Dingos in the sanctuary. I found out that after the close, they take the dingos on walks. They aren't dogs though. More like a mix between a fox and coyote. The ones we were able to pet and interact with were being trained to do very simple things. The ranger said it was like trying to teach a cat a trick, as they are very strong willed and don't really care what the rangers wanted them to do.

I snapped a pic of this little rodent while walking in the aviary. After I got back, I looked up some pictures, and am pretty sure this guy is called a Bandicoot. He was chowing on that nut, which allowed me to get pretty close. :)

There was a creek running through the entire sanctuary, and this is just one pic I have of how pretty it was there. The layout wasn't like normal zoos with straight concrete paths... the path flowed around trees, up and down hills, and bridged the creeks. It was very nice just walking, as it was much like a hike in the woods when you weren't looking at animals.

There were tons of birds to look at. They were not scared of you very much, and you could feed them! This led to some of my favorite pictures....

A Scaly Breasted Lorikeet

A female Eclectus Parrot

And the male Eclectus Parrot

A Cockatiel Parrot

This bird was in an aviary all to itself. It is called the lyrebird. These birds can mimic any sound they hear. We actually head it mimic the Kookaburra Bird. It also landed right in front of us when walking through the enclosure, and proceeded to dig up some supper for itself. All just an arm's length away. It was one of the coolest things ever.

So those were some things we saw and did in the Healesville Sanctuary. Even though it rained on us a few times, and it was cold at others, it was one of the best days so far!



I went a little overboard on the photoshop on this Kangaroo pic...
Makes for a nice background though. :D