Wallabies!



Beth and her new wallaby friends

Today we camped in the Atherton Tablelands, an area of Queensland that is higher altitude than the coast, and is a bit drier too (although there are still patches of rainforest here).  We had one place in mind:  Granite Gorge.  We heard it had a great swimming hole (too rocky for crocs) and lots of rock wallabies.  The lady running the campground was a hoot!  She had her own “zoo,” full of various birds and lizards; there was even a pair of American turkeys (no, not us! J) with chicks running around the place.  Her monitor lizard got out three days ago and she was worried that the kookaburras (birds) would catch and eat him.  Luckily she found him that morning – she liked to hold and cuddle him. 

Baby wallaby peeking from its pouch

The wallabies at Granite Gorge are a special type that is able to live amongst the rocks – they are very agile and stick to the rocks like glue.  They can also hop into trees.  The lady running the place sells special food for feeding the wallabies – she assured us that she had a license for this (not sure what that means exactly; it doesn’t seem like feeding them would be good).  We were anxious to see a wallaby “in the wild,” so we purchased food and made our way out onto the rocks.  It didn’t take long for them to find us (not a surprise), and before we knew it we had a group of them surrounding us.  The best part was seeing the little ones peeking out from their mother’s pouches – so cute!  They looked so cozy in there it made me want a pouch of my own to sleep in! 

Daron as crocodile bait



After the food was gone we went to the swimming hole to check it out.  The water was brackish, even though a fresh water river fed into it.  They assured us there weren’t crocs in the area (too many boulders), although it looked like a good place for them to be.  Daron made his way down the rock face in order to wade in; the algae on the rock were so slippery that he slid right in!  I couldn’t stop laughing; even now it makes me laugh out loud!   There was a rope bolted to the rock (now we know what that was for!), and all I could hear above my laughter is Daron saying, “Throw me the rope!  Throw me the rope!”  It was so slick that he couldn’t get out on his own.   If there were crocs in that pool, they would definitely have had a tasty and easy meal waiting for them.  Good times for sure - I got to see rock wallabies up close, as well as my husband squirm, all in the same day! J