Blackbutt Reserve (Drew)

This past Saturday Melissa and I made a trip to Blackbutt Reserve, a nature reserve a few miles outside of Newcastle. Even though severe flooding destroyed most of the reserve 18 months ago, they have managed to rebuild and repopulate most of the area. Several miles of walking trails are available to go "bush-walking" and enjoy the scenery. However, we cut the nature hike short b/c temps were around 105 deg F. Along the walk we encountered peacocks, roosters, possums and several large, colorful spiders.

The highlight of the trip was the animal exhibits. We got up close and personal looks at wallaroos, wombats, all sorts of species of birds, and Melissa's favorite - the koalas. Because of the soaring temperatures, they did not want to take the koalas out of their environment - so we got to enter their habitat instead (the misters were very welcome at that point in time). We got to feed and handle Jarah, a 13-month old koala shown in the blog. You could tell she was used to people b/c she ate up the attention. We ended the day with our now favorite activity - going to the beach.