Adelaide (Day 78): Cleland Wildlife Park and Hahndorf

May 17, 2016

Today was the day I’ve been waiting for since arriving in Adelaide (and Australia for that matter). We were going to the Cleland Wildlife Park to see and interact with koalas, kangaroos, wallabies and more. We waited for a sunny weekday so it wouldn’t be so crowded in the park. Cleland is about 30 minutes out of the city and in the Adelaide Hills. Robin had the day off so he came along and drove us there.

Cleland Wildlife Park entrance
Cleland Wildlife Park entrance

Cleland Park is massive, and unlike a zoo, the animals aren’t in small cages but are in enclosed large open areas that are separated by doors that visitors can roams through as they please. So basically it’s like a huge park where you can see all the animals roam around and interact with them. Admission is $22 AUD per person and we bought two bags of food ($3 AUD each) so we could feed the animals around the park. The small bag of food is a vegetable pellet mix.

The first animals we saw scurrying around were called potoroos. They are kangaroo-like marsupials the size of a rabbit and have long thick tails. These guys are all over the park and are fairly friendly. They came up to our feet a few times in hopes we would have food for them. They are basically like squirrels back home.

Tim with some potoroos
Tim with some potoroos

We went straight to the koala close up area, where you can come close to a koala, pet it, and take a picture. You can also hold a koala for $30 AUD. It would have been cool to hold a koala but I didn’t want to pay $30 AUD to do it. In the koala close up, we met a 16 year old koala named Ash. When I first saw her, she was a pretty good looking koala – clean, big and fluffy. Many koalas I’ve seen before in zoos in other parts of the world are a lot smaller and do not look as well taken care of. I later learned that South Australian koalas are a lot bigger than koalas in other parts of Australia. Since the park wasn’t busy, we were able to take our time with Ash and her handlers.

Robin, Tim and I with Ash
Robin, Tim and I with Ash
Ash the Koala
Ash the Koala

After our visit with Ash, we went over to where the other koalas were hanging out. The koala keepers were bringing in fresh eucalyptus branches for them to eat. It was entertaining to watch them because as soon as the koalas saw the fresh branches they all sat up and started moving to where the keepers would place the new ones. It’s funny though because the “old” branches that were there weren’t even old looking, but I guess koalas prefer super fresh leaves to munch on. There was even one koala that jumped out of his tree on to the ground to follow one of the handlers and wanted to be picked up (we later learned his name is Nicholas and he fancies one of the volunteers). These koalas are all rescues and cannot be put back into the wild because they don’t have the essential survival skills.

Koalas munching on their new eucalyptus
Koalas munching on their new eucalyptus

The next area we went to visit was where the kangaroos were. There were different types of kangaroos and they were all in separate park areas. There were red kangaroos (the large ones that are fairly common, more of a beige colour), western grey kangaroos (smaller and fluffier), and Kangaroo Island kangaroos (which are dark grey). The majority of the red kangaroos were just resting and lying down. Kangaroos are most active during dusk, which is why so many of them get into trouble while hopping around highways in Australia.

Red kangaroo just chilling
Red kangaroo just chilling

We found a few western grey kangaroos to feed. At first I didn’t know how close I should be to the kangaroos since you never know with wild animals but I quickly learned that the kangaroos here are extremely used to humans and are very gentle and friendly. It was a very different experience from feeding deer in Nara! There is a kangaroo “rest area” which is roped off to visitors and it was where the majority of the kangaroos were just lying around. We didn’t see the signs saying it was a rest area, which also meant do not feed them. Some of the kangaroos did come out of the area when they saw humans around if they wanted something to eat. Tim enticed one to come out to the open grass for some food.

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Western Grey Kangaroo
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They’re so gentle and calm
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Me offering food to a small Western Grey Kangaroo
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Their fur is very soft

The kangaroo that came out of the roped off area towards us was a pregnant mama kangaroo. We saw that her pouch was full and at some points it was moving around quite a bit. We agreed that we should give her more food since she was eating for two. She stayed with us for a while munching on the veggie pellets. Then suddenly the pouch was moving around a lot and we saw a little head poke out. It was a joey! This was so awesome to be able to see a joey in its mother’s pouch still. He looked really young and a little like a puppy. He would pop his head in and out as he pleased for the rest of the time we were feeding his Mom. It’s one thing to be able to see kangaroos from afar but it was quite surreal to be interacting with one. After about 20 minutes, the Mom had enough food and hopped away to get some water.

You can see her pouch is full
You can see her pouch is full
Hi Mama and Joey!
Hi Mama and Joey!
You can see the hole in the pouch where the Joey sticks his head out
You can see the hole in the pouch where the Joey sticks his head out
Such a cute Joey
Such a cute Joey

The Kangaroo Island kangaroos seemed a bit more scared of humans compared to the western greys. Tim approached a larger kangaroo to feed it. He showed him the food and the kangaroo came and took a few bites. Tim tripped over his own feet as he was trying to get more comfortable and it startled the kangaroo and it hopped away pretty quickly. We found two smaller kangaroos around this part of the park that were interested in food. They were very sweet and sometimes they would put their paws on our hands to block the other kangaroo from getting any food. There were also a lot of ducks around that were just around for the leftovers that fell on the ground. Ducks aren’t featured at the park but it seems like a large population of ducks come to Cleland because they can just be scavengers there.

Kangaroo Island kangaroo ran away
Kangaroo Island kangaroo ran away after being startled by Tim’s sudden movement.
Tim and I made two sweet friends
Tim and I made two sweet friends.
Posing for the camera
Posing for the camera
These guys weren't interested in much food. They took a couple of bites then went on their way.
These guys weren’t interested in much food. They took a couple of bites then went on their way.

Before coming to Australia, I didn’t know what a wallaby was. We saw so many of them and they’re so cute. They’re just like mini fluffy kangaroos. We fed a few of them and found a very young one in the bushes around the walkways that was just hanging out. We offered it food and it came up to us and ate. It got really scared when two potoroos ran across the bush near it… it jumped back really quickly. I have a pretty cool video of that happening. By the end of the day, I had taken 500 pictures and 30 videos.

Me feeding a baby wallaby
Me feeding a baby wallaby that was scared of the small potoroos

Along with Australia’s unique animals, they have vastly different birds. There were quite a few aviaries where we could see more unique birds flying around. There was also a large pond area that had huge pelicans hanging out along with ibises (garbage birds) and geese. I’ve never seen a pelican like that before. They definitely could eat as many fish as they like.

Tim feeding a Cape Barren Goose
Tim feeding a Cape Barren Goose

Some other animals that were in enclosed areas that you couldn’t walk through (for good reason) were dingos. Dingos are mainly found in the outback and in Western Australia. They are slowly becoming extinct as many of them are mixing with domestic dogs and there are not as many pure bred Dingos left in Australia. We learned that Dingos are Australia’s apex land predator because they can actually kill kangaroos. When we passed by the dingo area, we were just in time for a feeding. Dingos are actually very good looking dogs, you almost forget they are wild. The Dingo keeper was feeding them chickens with the feathers still on. The dingos that were being fed were three brothers that the park got in November. There is a dominate brother who basically ate all the chicken and a very submissive brother who just kept hiding behind the handlers and if he touched a piece of chicken, the older brother would growl and bark at him. The growl and bark was very loud and aggressive sounding. The third brother took his chicken as soon as it hit the ground and ran away to eat it peacefully.

Dingos with their keeper
Dingos with their keeper

The Tasmanian Devil was very cute. It kind of hid from us when we came by his area. The Tasmanian Devils are becoming endangered and have been prone to developing a facial type of cancer which is killing off a lot of them right now.

Spot the Tasmanian Devil peeking out at us
Spot the Tasmanian Devil peeking out at us

After spending about 4 hours at the park, we headed out. We started and ended with a koala close up and got to meet another koala. It was a really fun day and was definitely the highlight of Australia so far (for me). Tim had been to Cleland before and he never hyped it up to me so I wasn’t prepared for how awesome it would be. He told me after that he knew it was going to be amazing for me but wanted me to see for myself. I’m happy we waited for Cleland and didn’t just see all these animals in one of Australia’s many zoos.

White haired wombat. Most wombats in Australia are brown.
White haired wombat. Most wombats in Australia are brown.
Emus
Emus
Black swans
Black swan

Cleland is close to the summit of Mount Lofty – which has a view point of Adelaide. Most people hike up to the summit but since we were at the summit already we just drove into the parking lot to take a look. Unfortunately, the sky was very hazy so we couldn’t see much of the city from there. You could barely make out the outline of the skyline. Apparently there were some fires a couple of weeks ago so that’s probably why it was hazy.

View from Mount Lofty through the haze
View from Mount Lofty through the haze. On a clear day you could see all of Adelaide.

Also in Adelaide Hills, there is a town called Hahndorf, Australia’s oldest German settlement. The main street in Hahndorf is really quaint and very charming. The architecture and feel of the streets does feel like you’re in Germany or Germany at Epcot. We had a pretty late lunch at the German Arms pub where we shared a burger and Bavarian meat platter. Everything was really good, I especially liked the roasted pork and crackling. We walked to a leather smith shop and looked around. The majority of stores and cafes in Hahndorf close at 5pm so as we were walking around after our late lunch all the stores were closing. If we’re ever in Adelaide again, I would want to spend a bit more time here when stores are open and it’s a bit more lively.

Hahndorf had a couple of Chinese restaurants
Hahndorf had a couple of Chinese restaurants
Some of Hahndorf's quaint stores
Some of Hahndorf’s quaint stores
Definitely felt like Fall in Adelaide Hills. It got very chilly when the sun went down.
Definitely felt like Fall in Adelaide Hills. It got very chilly when the sun went down.

We headed back to the townhouse to meet Jess for dinner. Tim and I both fell asleep during the ride back and when we got back to the townhouse we all rested up. Jess and Robin made reservations for dinner later in the evening at a restaurant downtown called Red Ochre. It’s a restaurant that specializes in Australian and Native cooking and serve a lot of Australian specific meats – like kangaroo, emu, crocodile. It wasn’t ideal that we would be playing with kangaroos during the day and then eating them for dinner.

Platter with pork & emu sausage, crocodile ribs, kangaroo steak, and lamb ($50 AUD pp)
Platter for two with pork & emu sausage, crocodile ribs, kangaroo steak, fried barramundi and lamb ($50 AUD pp)

The restaurant is situated on the Torrens River and we were seated at a table with a view of the river and part of downtown. Since our dinner was at 7:30pm, it was already dark out so we could just see some of the buildings lit up in the distance. We ordered a platter that had kangaroo steaks, lamb, crocodile ribs, emu and pork sausage, and fried barramundi. This was a good way to sample all the different types of Australian meats. Unfortunately, my favourite meat was the kangaroo. They cooked it really well. It was extremely tender for a meat that is typically very tough. I actually felt a bit bad eating meat for the first time. We ordered our meat medium rare and when I ate the kangaroo, I even flipped it over so I didn’t see the meat juice. I probably won’t be eating any more kangaroo meat on this trip.

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Thanks to Robin and Jess for a wonderful meal!

After dinner, we headed back to the townhouse, made tea and played some more of the games we brought. Tomorrow is going to be our last day in Adelaide before heading up north to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef.

Steps today: 12,000

Adelaide (Day 77): An Autumn Downtown Day

May 16, 2016

We woke up this morning to the smell of pancakes and pouring rain. Jess and Robin were both up early because Jess worked this morning and Robin was being a good husband and making breakfast. It’s also their first wedding anniversary today! When Tim and I went downstairs Robin told us the pancakes didn’t turn out well because the batter from yesterday had separated and it was inedible. Instead, Robin prepared a granola and fruit bowl for our breakfast. We had bought passion fruit yogurt yesterday so I added it in to make a fruit and granola parfait.

Passionfruit yogurt with granola and fruit
Passionfruit yogurt with granola and fruit

Jessica and Robin got us a 3GB SIM card for data from Telstra (one of Australia’s major cell phone providers). We got the SIM card activated at around 5pm the day before, but Tim and I had used all the data by 10am (whoops). I guess when we have 5 devices on WiFi, it’s easy to blow through that data. We added more money on to the SIM but we added it on to the wrong SIM card by mistake and had to call Telstra to get it sorted out. We waited the whole day for the credit to be added but no luck. So when Jess got home, she called Telstra again to help get things fixed. So many calls to Telstra!

Since it was raining this morning we decided to hold on off on going to Cleland Wildlife Park and just hang out downtown. Robin wasn’t working until 4pm today so we spent the afternoon with him. We went downtown for lunch at a vegetarian Taiwanese restaurant that Jess and Robin go to once in a while. The restaurant was called THEA and it was quite busy with what looked like office workers from nearby buildings. We ordered some dishes to share and a bubble tea – our first bubble tea since leaving Taipei. This bubble tea was not $1.40 CAD… it ended up being $5.70 AUD. The food was okay. Tim’s cold noodles were the best dish by far. The pearl milk tea was also surprisingly good – good textured pearls and solid tea. I wasn’t a huge fan of my dish or the special snack dishes for the day.

THEA - Vegetarian Taiwanese food
THEA – Vegetarian Taiwanese food
Robin and Tim at THEA
Robin and Tim at THEA
My mushroom rice bowl with tofu, dim sum, fried "chicken" and fried "squid"
My mushroom rice bowl with tofu, dim sum, fried “chicken” and fried “squid” (Rice was $10 AUD, all other side dishes were $6 AUD)
Tim's cold noodles which was the best dish there. $10 AUD
Tim’s cold noodles which was the best dish there. $10 AUD
Pearl milk tea ($6.20 AUD) and mango green tea with pearls ($6.20 AUD)
Pearl milk tea ($6.20 AUD) and mango green tea with pearls ($6.20 AUD)

After lunch, Robin took us through other parts of the Botanic Gardens and to the Torrens River for a nice walk. The weather had totally changed from the gloomy rainy morning to beautiful blue skies and sun. Australian weather changes really quickly apparently. It was really nice to go for a long walk around some pretty peaceful areas of the city. Our end point of our walk before we turned around back to the city was to go to a suspension bridge that crossed the Torrens River. The bridge is scheduled to be updated, which made me a bit nervous while crossing since it is really old and it looked that way too.

Bamboo forest at Adelaide's Botanic Gardens
Bamboo forest at Adelaide’s Botanic Gardens
Australian flowers
Australian flowers
Huge lily pads from the Nile
Huge lily pads from the Nile
Inside the rainforest house
Inside the rainforest house
Fig Tree
Fig Tree on the way to the Torrens River
Pink peppercorn trees by the Torrens River
Pink peppercorn trees by the Torrens River. Tim and Robin chewed on some.
Walkway along the Torrens River
Walkway along the Torrens River
Old Gibson's suspension bridge that's supposed to be fixed soon. Which made me nervous about crossing it.
Gilberston’s Swing Bridge that’s supposed to be fixed soon. Which made me nervous about crossing it.

We headed back into the city and Robin headed off to the hospital for his shift. Tim and I walked along North Terrace Road and went to the Adelaide Museum of Art for a quick look. All the museums are free in Adelaide, which is great. I like some museums, but I’m not a big fan of art museums so it’s good this was free or else I probably wouldn’t pay to go in. We did a quick walk through the museum and they had quite the mix of old English looking art to modern art that I don’t understand. They had a huge taxidermy horse hanging from the ceiling, which was really strange and a bit disturbing. We didn’t spend much time in the museum, just a quick walkthrough to get the gist of what it was like.

I really like this building on North Terrace Road. A lot of Adelaide's older buildings look similar to this.
We passed by this building each day we were downtown on North Terrace Road. I really like the look and character of the building.
University of South Australia
University of South Australia on North Terrace Road. The hospital Robin works at is right beside these buildings.
University of SA buildings
University of SA buildings
South Australia Art Museum
Art Gallery of South Australia
Weird horse display inside the art museum
Weird horse display inside the art gallery
War Memorial on North Terrace Road
War Memorial on North Terrace Road

After walking down North Terrace Road, we headed back to Rundle Mall for the free and fast WiFi. We basically sat on the many benches and surfed the net, downloaded shows, and posted yesterday’s blog post for about 1.5 hours. Adelaide is great for having accessible free and fast WiFi throughout the downtown core. It’s too bad it doesn’t extend out to where Jess and Robin are in Woodville Park (5km outside downtown).

Tim getting his downloads in while at Rundle Mall
Tim getting his downloads in while on Rundle Mall
Fountain outside the Adelaide Arcade on Rundle Mall
Fountain outside the Adelaide Arcade on Rundle Mall
Sun setting and we're still here
Sun setting and we’re still here

We finished with the WiFi and headed back to the townhouse to meet Jess for dinner after she was done her shift. We planned on going to a Vietnamese restaurant close to their place called, NNQ (Nghi Ngan Quan). The restaurant was in an old and charming building and looked like a very modern and somewhat trendy Vietnamese restaurant. Woodville and Australia in general has a very large Vietnamese community so you see a lot of Vietnamese restaurants around. The restaurant was full inside when we got there, so we got seated outside (with heat lamps that were really hot). The food was really good! I can’t wait to go to Vietnam where our meals will be a fraction of the price they are here. I enjoyed our dinner a lot more than our vegetarian Taiwanese lunch.

NNQ (Nghi Ngan Quan)
NNQ (Nghi Ngan Quan)
Custard apple smoothie ($4.50 AUD) and grilled pork vermicelli bowl ($12 AUD)
Custard apple smoothie ($4.50 AUD) and grilled pork vermicelli bowl ($12 AUD)
Tim and Jess at NNQ
Tim and Jess at NNQ
Tim's pho ($10 AUD). The pho we've had so far in Australia have all been thick rice noodles not like the thin kind in NA. We aren't as big of fans of the the thicker noodles.
Tim’s pho ($10 AUD). The pho we’ve had so far in Australia have all been thick rice noodles not like the thin kind back at home. We aren’t as big fans of the thicker noodles (Tim: They get soggy and soak up lots of the soup).

We came back home just in time for the last half of Masterchef Australia (the show started here). It’s on every day at 7:30pm except for Fridays and Saturdays (no wonder it’s such a popular show here), we’ve only watched a couple of episodes and we know some participants pretty well. Our favourite is Con, a guy from Melbourne who looks like a sad Joey Fatone from NSYNC.

Jess boiled some hot water and made some tea and we played a card game called SushiGo. She got the card game from a friend in Vancouver and we had actually gotten the same game from Hon before we left. But since the packaging is a bit more cumbersome we left it at home. The three of us played a couple of games – Jess won two out of the three games. Tim gets sad when he’s playing badly, it’s quite funny.

Steps today: 20,000

South Australia (Day 75): Mount Gambier & Adelaide

May 14, 2016

Last night was pretty cold, we woke up and it felt like we had woken up outside. Tim said it felt like we had been camping last night. After some examination of the air conditioner, we realized that it’s also a heater! Oh well, now we know that air conditioners in Australia are different than the ones in Asia (which don’t turn into heaters).

We checked out of the motel around 10am and went to the main attraction in Mount Gambier, a crater lake called, Blue Lake. The lake was a lot larger than I thought it would be. During different times of the year, the colour of the lake changes. They say in May it’s more of a grey blue but some parts of the year it can become a bright and vibrant blue.

Blue Lake, Mount Gambier
Blue Lake, Mount Gambier

After Blue Lake we headed to Mount Gambier’s main street, called Commercial Street, for breakfast. Jessica, suggested a bakery in town but when we got there, it looked like the bakery had shut down so we walked around to see what else there was. We walked down Commercial Street a bit more and saw a building that said “OK Pie Shop”. We were intrigued by their modest name and were up for trying more Australian meat pies. OK Pies was a bakery that sold pies, pastries, and coffee. We shared a beef & mushroom pie and a curry beef pie. Both were quite tasty, I’m actually enjoying them quite a bit. The pies were better than the ones in Port Campbell because I think OK pies actually makes their pies in house.

Commercial St., Mount Gambier
Commercial St., Mount Gambier
OK Pieshop
OK Pie Shop pies
Our breakfast/lunch at OK Pie ($4.60 AUD = $4.33 CAD) and orange and mango juice ($3.50 AUD = $3.30 CAD)
Our breakfast/lunch at OK Pie Shop ($4.60 AUD = $4.33 CAD) and orange and mango juice ($3.50 AUD = $3.30 CAD)

After lunch we set out on our way towards Adelaide. It was about 400km to get to Jess and Robin’s townhouse in Adelaide. The drive was a fairly easy and non-eventful drive. There’s not much to see on the way there besides seeing lots of cow and sheep farms and wineries. Apparently South Australia is wine country. I saw some names that I recognize – like Penfolds and Lindeman’s. The majority of the highway is one lane, with some segments that are two lanes for passing (or overtaking as they say here). There are a lot of signs that say “Drowsy Drivers Die” – we must have seen over 20 of them.

South Australia is wine country. We saw vineyards for about 20km +
South Australia is wine country. We saw vineyards for about 200km+

We got into Adelaide around 3:30pm and passed by Jess and Robin’s townhouse to see where it was. They were at a conference today so they weren’t home yet. All we knew was that they would be home before dinner since they wanted to change after the conference ended before heading out for the closing dinner. We decided to get something to eat and then come back and wait for them to come home.

We drove around their area in Woodville, which seems like a very multicultural neighbourhood. We saw a lot of Asian and Indian restaurants around. We were both craving pizza so we looked at Tim’s offline maps at what was around, but every place we went to on those maps was either closed or didn’t exist. While driving around we spotted a Domino’s. We went there and ordered two pizzas. The pizzas were very cheap, they have $5 pizzas any time before 9pm for pick up. We asked how big they were and they said they were all larges (Australian larges are like Canadian small pizzas). We sat in and ate some of the pizza before leaving. When we first got to Domino’s they were really busy with delivery and their phone was constantly ringing. But while we were eating, so many people came in to order and the demographics reminded me of home. It was like we were in East Van – there were a lot of East Indians and Asians.

Waiting for our pizza at Domino's. Like Tim's hair?
Waiting for our pizza at Domino’s. Like Tim’s hair?
Pepperoni and mushroom pizza for $5 AUD = $4.70 CAD
Our large Pepperoni and mushroom pizza for $5 AUD = $4.70 CAD

We headed back to Jess and Robin’s townhouse and parked in their driveway waiting for them. Since we had unreliable internet, Tim’s message saying that we’d wait at their place around 5pm didn’t go through so we were hoping that they were still coming back before their dinner. It felt like we were on a stake out since we were waiting in the car with a pizza.

Finally, we saw them pull up! They were wondering why we were waiting outside. Jess had sent Tim a message about hiding their key for us. But we told them that we didn’t get it, so we just waited. Their townhouse is nice and spacious and all the pictures around are nice and homey. It was so nice to see them and to be able to spend time with them in Adelaide.

Our lovely room in Adelaide
Our lovely room in Adelaide

They headed out for their conference dinner and Tim and I washed up and watched Aussie TV (and I blogged). We’re having fun watching AFL games (Tim is constantly giggling about how silly he thinks the rules are) and Masterchef Australia. Jess and Robin don’t have Wifi here but they got us a sim card that needs to be activated, so hopefully we can get that sorted out tomorrow.

We’re dropping our car off tomorrow morning at the Hertz downtown and will spend the day with Jess (Robin has to work tomorrow).

Steps today: 2,000