And Now, Back to our Regularly Scheduled Program

Our apologies to the multitudes who have waited with baited breath for the next thrilling installment of AlianTravels. The dearth of posts was due to Matt’s return to the States for a few weeks, which meant very little time for either of us to blog about Oz.

In the interim our stuff arrived. Hey, it was only four weeks late, but at least very few things were broken. As Matt was living the high life in Minnesota, Marlys got to spend some quality alone time with 65 boxes, a bed that just wouldn’t put itself together, and piles and piles of clothes that required laundering and ironing. But we’re finally moved in, more or less, and read for guests!

To celebrate Matt’s return we drove up and into the Yarra Ranges Park to do some hiking, see the waterfalls, and get some fresh mountain air. One highlight was the mountain ash trees (they’re actually a variety of eucalyptus), which can grow to 200 feet tall. It’s like driving through the redwood forests, although in fairness the ashes are usually thinner than redwoods. Interesting fact: mountain ashes are agoraphobic. If two ashes grow close together, they will shed branches so they don’t touch. So in the forests, the trunks go up for 100 feet before there is any canopy. On the other hand, if an ash grows alone, it will have branches at all levels.

Road Through the Park

When Matt was in Minnesota the third most frequent question he was asked was: “Have you seen a kangaroo yet?” Embarrassed by the fact he always had to answer “no”, we resolved to see all the wildlife we could as soon as possible, and so on the way back into town we stopped at the Healesville Animal Sanctuary. For those of you coming to visit with kids, this is a must see location. It is a wonderful place, not at all zoo like, and the following is a non-exhaustive list of Australian fauna we observed:

Kangaroo

Emu (on left)
Tasmanian Devil

Koala


And also Echidna, Wallaby, Platypus , Wombat, Dingo, Flying Foxes (HUGE bats), and dozens of exotic birds.