Cleland Wildlife Park, Adelaide

It's cold here in Adelaide, compared to Sydney. Yesterday Helen and Richard took me to the Cleland Wildlife Park and we got to walk amongst kangaroos, wallabies, emus and lots of ducks. There were other animals that you could see but not touch, like dingos and wombats (which to me look like giant hamsters). My favourite Australian animal, the echidnas were nowhere to be seen. Perhaps they were hiding in the long grass or hollow logs, laughing at us as we searched fruitlessly.

We came across a group of emus. One female was being harrassed by the others - she had three chicks and two eggs. One of the chicks looked like it had just been hatched as the shell from the egg was still on the ground. The other two looked much older. One of the adult emus picked up the new hatchling and tossed it on the grass. So Helen wades in, mother-instinct aroused, and starts shooing off the adult emus and puts the little one back in the nest. The adults continued to try to get to the little one, so Helen starts whacking them on the rump to get them to move away. I took photos in case we had to explain things to the police later after the emus ganged up on Helen and tossed her on the grass.


Helen and the emus