Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Eaglereach

Friday evening, Liz, Tim, Rachel and I left for Eaglereach, once Tim and Liz got off work. We had a cabin out there for the weekend. The picture above is the view from the back porch of our cabin. Moral of the Story: "If ever traveling to Australia/New Zealand, consult Tim Nagy on where to book places to stay." This picture is from sunrise. There was a beautiful low layer of fog in the valley. Saturday morning, we awoke and headed up to breakfast at the top of the mountain. Behind the restaurant, they have food for the kangaroos and native birds, so it is an excellent opportunity to get some great pictures. Ironically, the kangaroos and wallabys are going to the restaurant for the breakfast at the same time as the people are, so you actually see a lot of them on your way to the restaurant. As they do not have any natural predators in Australia, they are not shy of people. The picture on the left below is a picture of Rachel and me, with a couple of kangaroos on the way to breakfast. The picture on the right is us with a wallaby behind our cabin. The third picture is of a couple of crimson rosellas. You may want to click on the photo to make it bigger so you can see them more clearly.
The video above is of a kangaroo hopping around behind the restaurant where our breakfast was served. The picture on the below left is of this same group of kangaroos. The picture on the below right is of sunset from our back porch.

This picture is of the group of us at an overlook on the grounds.


On Saturday night, we grilled out at our cabin. Master chef Tim Nagy presided over the meal. We had steak, lamb, chicken, sausage and bacon. Oh yeah, and we had cole slaw, vegetables, salad, and a veggie burger for Rachel. The meal was fabulous.

Rachel and I woke up first on Sunday morning and went to the front yards to see if we could see any birds (we could hear them chirping from our room). We didn't find the birds, but we did find 3 kangaroos underneath our deck. We coaxed them out with some kangaroo food and shot this video of the dominant kangaroo "boxing" the others away from the planted food.


I put down more food in an attempt to provide additional piles so that the others could eat. A wallaby soon joined the group. He was afraid of the other kangaroos, so I put more food down for him. It was fun to watch him stick his nose in the air and catch the scent of the food. He would then wander over to it and eat until one of the kangaroos would scuttle him (wallabys are a little smaller than the roos). We were able to get within 8 feet of him to take pictures on several occasions. We had a regular marsupial buffet behind our cabin by the time Tim and Liz came out and joined us.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Glad you arrived safe and sound. I am sitting at my computer typing and watching the snow fall outside and am completely in awe of the fact you guys are wearing shorts in your pictures! Hope you have a wonderful rest of the trip!

Mark said...

Amazing pictures, especially of the landscapes! You're both brave to turn your backs on the kangaroos while holding bags of food... sure looks like it's staring you down, thinking of a way to get the food out of your hands.