May 13 -- Adelaide, Day 1

We left Melbourne early and flew into Adelaide by noon. We are in a strange time zone that is a half hour earlier than the one we left, and I am trying to survive by looking at my watch and travel clock and subtracting a half hour instead of changing everything. I am writing this on the 14th and am sorry to report that I woke up at 5 am realizing I had set my alarm clock in the wrong direction and it was going to go off at 5:30 instead of 6:30, and then couldn't get back to sleep. So much for grand plans!

We immediately headed off on a bus tour of Adelaide, 5th largest city in Australia, and then went to the Cleland Wildlife Park, where one of the options was to get your picture taken holding a koala. As we drove there, we discovered that our bus driver was very knowledgeable about the Barossa Valley, where we are planning to drive on Wednesday to sample wines there. At lunch, he provided a list of recommended places which turned out to be very helpful.

We headed out to explore the park and focused on arriving at the koala area shortly before photos started. Our first encounter was with potoroo -- they are tiny marsupials that at first glance look like huge rats. They scampered around us as we headed out and entertained us in several places in the park. In one area, they sort of lined up in a row looking up at Jim, but as soon as someone else walked up, their attention scattered.

Potoroo -- a teensy kangaroo variety

They apparently found Jim fascinating.

At the monitor lizard enclosure, I spied a dark lump on a branch and thought that was the most we were going to see of him, but then he woke up and moved to a new sunny log and posed beautifully. Next up was the dingo area -- there were three that we could see -- looked sort of like beautiful reddish German shepherds. The koalas were next and we wandered around taking pictures -- looked like it was nap time for most of them. I was first in line for the photo and got to hold one for a few minutes. He got quite heavy in short order. The staff was enticing him to smile for the camera by repeatedly trying to feed him eucalyptus. Koalas are notoriously picky, eating leaves from only 30 varieties of eucalyptus of the 900 some available. My guy was even worse, selecting only a few choice leaves from occasional branches, but he was cooperative enough to allow a few good photos.

Dingoes. I had mentally pictured them as much scruffier and coyote-like.

Sleepy koala

The greenish vest protects me from Isaac's claws

From there, we found an aquatic bird area and were treated to quite a scene with a white and black pelican appeared to be chasing a black swan away from the shore where we were standing. Even after he moved the swan across the pond, he kept pursuing and we realized he was doing an interesting wing display and it occurred to us that maybe he was a frustrated boy trying to impress the wrong kind of girl! We saw several other aquatic birds, kangaroos (ho hum, been there seen that!), and emus.  We did come across an interesting kangaroo threesome -- a large male was apparently intent on 'doing' a much smaller female and had her in a firm grip. At the same time, a smaller male hopped on top of the big guy and tried to get into the act as well. We also found wombats, wallabies, echidna, and a bilby -- very rabbit-like except for the nose. Since rabbits are a serious problem here, the concept of an Easter bunny is not a happy thing, so they have Easter bilbies instead.

Chasing the swan away or pursuing his true love????

An odd couple

Emu closeup

Well-hidden bird -- not an owl.

Kangaroo love

Echidna pair

Bilby --- very cute except for the nose!

 After a brief time at our hotel, the group split into segments to go to dinner hosted by a local person. We learned that our host, Sue, had taken ill at the last minute and so her partner, Lieth, and his daughter Cassandra would be hosting us. It was quite a long drive to their home and our driver kept up a steady one-way conversation for the entire trip. When we arrived, we discovered we were in for more of the same: Lieth provided a very tasty meal, but kept up a running monolog that pretty much precluded two-way conversation. Our trip home with Richard was equally wordy. Karen and I sat next to Cassandra at the opposite end of the table from Lieth, and were able to have a pleasant conversation with her.