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One of our regular visitors with her joey
Before coming to Australia I let slip to Lesley on the phone that I really wanted to see kangaroos in the wild. I remember her stories from years back about the dangers of kangaroos on the road at dusk, and this made a big impression on me. Forget surfing, scuba diving, the outback - just give me a Skippy sighting and I'd be happy. Well, Lesley and Steve remembered a campsite they've stayed at over the years, about a 3-hour drive South of Sydney, down the Pacific highway. This is where us 4 girls spent the weekend, at Bream Beach holiday park. We took the camper-trailer, which was our home from home for three nights. It was fantastic. Best of all were our neighbours - kangaroos with their joeys, laughing kukaburra, possums, cockatoos and various other forms of 'exotic' wildlife. It poured with rain on the last night, flooding part of the tent, but nothing could dampen our spirits.

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The waves appeared to be fairly small but were powerful enough to dump Edie several times on the beach, with a mouthful and earfuls of salt water.
Here's what Freda has to say: We went to the beach every day . It was excellent. The water was quite cold at first but we soon got used to it. Some of the waves were quite small but some were huge. Lesley taught us how to dive under the waves so that they didn't knock us over. When we were at the beach we did body surfing in the waves. I can't wait to go to Bondai beach.
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One of our regulars at the tent. Hard to resist grabbing one these little joeys for a cuddle. Then again, when you see the claws on the adults you don't want to get into a boxing match.
It was great to see these marsupials up close. It's one thing reading about animal behaviour in a book, it's another to see it up close. What amazes us most was the size of joey that could still fit into the pouch. Another was the way the mother tightened the muscles around the pouch in order to be able to bounce around. The rest of the time the pouch was virtually resting on the ground under the weight.
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Our nocturnal visitor. Every evening this female possum came to the tent, foraging for food. Although timid she was bold, coming right under the awning to rummage for scraps. On the last night we gave in and gave her some fresh fruit.
See More Vidoes for the possum-feeding footage.
16/11/2010 08:54:08 am

How cool is that? Love the photo of the kangaroos with the tent in the background! Neat. (Can't get the videos page to do anything today though?)

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