Roos!

Last Sunday my host family took me to Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve. It was a great day! The park was beautiful, I got to see lots of animals, and we had a lot of fun.

Above is the recreation area where we had our picnic lunch. There were a lot of other families there. It's popular pretty much year round.


Here's Dafydd barbecuing some snags (sausages) for our lunch. The Reservce provides grills for anyone to use.


Here's the family with all of our picnic gear. I've realized that I need to hand over photography duty to one of the girls sometime, so I can be in a few pictures!


Caitlin and Sian are at the top of the spider's web (part of a play area( and Toni is sitting below them a few rungs. I climbed about half-way up, but then got down to take the picture.


Alright, here's what everyone wanted to see: kangaroos! I wasn't actually this close; I cropped the picture to make the kangaroo easier to see.



I didn't see any of these in the Reserve, but Caitlin is standing next to stuffed versions of a wombat (on the left) and an echidna (an odd egg-laying mammal, much like the platypus, which I didn't see either.)


The scenery was incredibly beautiful. Mountains in the background, and bush everywhere. it reminded me a bit of Grayson Highlands in Virginia.


Here are some emus. This picture didn't require any cropping or zooming, as we were able to et quite close. (They're not actually the most attractive birds.)


Another beautiful view.


Black swans with very striking red heads. Another animal we got quite close to.



I couldn't resist: another picture of the view.

More to come later! I think I need to post about some of the differences between Australia and the U.S. And the food: I promise I will tell everyone what I think of Vegemite. (The suspense is terrible, I know!)