Whenever we are not working in studio or getting ready for a firing, we love to take hikes and bike rides around the area. We're lucky enough to be situated right near a large nature preserve, in the middle of some gorgeous mountains, and close to a beautiful river! We also have a cow farm on one side of us, a sheep farm on the other side, and a vineyard across the street.
Our most recent walk turned out to be one of the scariest, but also most exciting experiences either of us ever could have imagined! We set out to take some photos of kangaroos that we had walked by earlier. While we were taking pictures, Adam noticed that two of the larger kangaroos was chasing another, smaller roo, around the field. The two larger ones stopped and started boxing eachother, just like we had seen on television! He thought that maybe it was two males fighting over a female. We walked on further to take some photos of the sunset and some kookaburras we had heard (they sound like monkeys howling and laughing in the trees!). As we began to focus on our next photographs and the beautiful scenery, we started to hear some loud thumping. Adam whispered my name, and at that moment, I turned around to see the three kangaroos chasing eachother no more than 15 feet away from us! The kangaroos must not have noticed us at first, because when Adam said my name, they stopped in their tracks and the two larger ones started to head towards us! I freaked out, afraid that these two kangaroos, both of which were taller than me, would see us as additional competition and rip us apart! I started to RUN. When I looked back and noticed that Adam wasn't following, I stopped. The smaller kangaroo must have seen this as a good opportunity to escape and started bounding away. As soon as the larger kangaroos saw this, their priorities changed and they sprang after her. Lucky us! After the panic subsided, it sunk in how awesome that experience was, and how lucky we are that we didn't get hurt! It's definitely an experience that we will never forget!
We wanted to share some of the natural beauty that surrounds us every day, and give a little information about these crazy Aussie creatures and plants!
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| A beautiful branch on a Wattle Tree, also known as an Acacia tree. The yellow flower that is produced is the national flower of Australia. |
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| It looks like blood, but it's the sap, or "gum" from the gum tree! Aboriginals would chew on this "gum," but it's not found in the chewing gum that we use. |
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| Adam feeding Caussie. We're his favorite people because he's supposed to be on a diet, but we break the rules sometimes :) |
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| We think this is an Australian King Parrot. We love seeing all of the brightly colored birds in the trees! |
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| Georgina's horse in front of another beautiful sunset. |
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| A Cockatoo flying overhead. |
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| Two Cockatoo's in a tree by our house. For being so pretty, they make some pretty aweful sounds. |
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| Enjoying the pretty sunset together! |
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| Some of the gorgeous scenery behind our house. |
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| Feeding the chickens and turkeys. |
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| A Magpie. They make all kinds of pretty and interesting sounds, but they look a little creepy. Note the bright red eyes. |
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| We made it to the river! |
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| The vineyard across the road from us. |
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| There are over 700 species of Eucalyptus trees in Australia! These ones "shed" their bark each year in the winter time. |
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| The bushtail possum. |
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| They are everywhere at night, and keep us up. |
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| Another one of the horses on the homestead. |
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| Lots of kangaroo pictures...but we think they're pretty cool :) |
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| Don't worry! It's dead...we just wanted to give an example of the types of spiders we see here. Adam saw one about 5 times bigger than this while he was chopping wood! Glad I wasn't there... |
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| A Gallah Parrot in someone's front yard. |
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| These are two of the kangaroos that we had the close encounter with! |
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| Eucalyptus trees are also called gum trees. This specific type has my favorite leaves. |
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| Some large, pretty, but poisonous mushrooms! |
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| Two Kookaburra sitting in a gum tree :) |
Sorry for the length of this post, we had so many photos that we wanted to share! We hope that you enjoyed learning a little about the wildlife in the Land Down Under!
