Our friend Vanessa volunteers at the Lyndoch Wildlife Sanctuary. They take in injured or orphaned native Aussie species, nurse them back to health or to adulthood, and then release them back into the wild. Of course, some of them can never be released back into the wild because they’ve become too dependent on humans and too unafraid of predators (like dogs and cats).
Vanessa invited Jamie to spend the afternoon visiting the animals.
The brushtail possum. As you can see in the photos below, it’s a friendly little devil.
A baby possum that was found sitting alongside the road after its mother was killed by a car.
This is a bettong, a word spellcheck has apparently never seen before. It’s like a mini-kangaroo that hops around being cute and making humans say, “Awwwwwwwww.” This one loves playing with (and tormenting) the sanctuary’s resident cat.
A black ring possum. Very similar to the brushtail possum our neighbor caught and transported to a lovely new home in the country.
Two echidnas curled up for an afternoon nap.
Jamie and a lizard. Couldn’t tell you what kind of lizard. A shingleback, I think.
A very inquisitive kangaroo.
And here’s the same kanga after he got tired of checking out the cell phone.
Thanks, Vanessa. Jamie can’t wait to come back to the Barossa Valley so she can visit you and the animals again.
The work that those folks do at the animal sanctuary is terrific. What a fabulous selection of unusual animals — well, they’re not unusual for Australia, but they certainly would be unusual in our neck of the woods (here in Davis, California).