Our dear friends Dennis and Fiona, with whom we had met several years earlier on a tour of Johannesburg, safari in Kruger National Park, and driving through the Drakensburg escarpment to Durban, South Africa, were taking us to the Healesville Sanctuary in their home country of Australia. We have spent time with Dennis and Fiona when they later traveled around the U.S., and subsequently we planned to spend the day with them in Melbourne, Victoria, AU.
We were in Melbourne after flying from a week long vacation in Sydney, Australia. Dennis and Fiona offered to take us wine tasting in the Yarra Valley, and included a stop at Healesville as an added bonus. What on earth is Healesville, we thought? The name sounded like some sort of wellness spa. Perhaps aHelesville, and the Yarra Valley are similar to how Napa Valley in the US is with lots of spas, complete with massage and mudbath packages. However, we learned that Healesville is wellness center, or sanctuary, maybe some sort of zoo, but solely for rescued animals.
Upon arrival, it was clear that Healesville is a different kind of zoo, specializing in native Australian animals, located in rural Victoria, Australia, with the goal of fighting extinction through several wildlife conservation programs.
As expected, we saw lots of kangaroos, koalas, who were always sleeping, the platypus, a semiaquatic, egg-laying mammal endemic to eastern Australia. The platypus is a venom-producing mammal, however, there no known cases of humans dying of platypus venom.
Nearby the kangaroos, the wallabies begged for adoring attention as they waited for visitors to ooh, ahh and pet their soft furry bodies.
As a child, Warner Bros Looney Tunes had a cartoon about a Tasmanian Devil, a character who he unsuccessfully stalked Bugs Bunny. While the real Tasmanian devil doesn't spin around the way he did in the cartoon, it gets excited as it devours its dinner. Our real life devil at Healesville, chomped up the fur and bones of a mouse with its powerful jaw for the spectators. It is the only surviving meat-eating marsupial.
We continued our stroll to see a veriety of birds, including our first look at the kookaburras.
is found in every habitat and state of Australia except Tasmania.
There were also bats and wombats.
For Derick, the highlight of the visit was seeing the dingo, an ancient lineage of dog found in Australia. The dingo is found in every habitat and state of Australia except Tasmania. They are generally found at the forest's edge and near grasslands, ans especially where drinking water can be found for its survival.
Like the koalas, the dingos slept the entire time we were in their area.
The highlight of our day at the sanctuary was during a Healesville Keeper Talk. About 50 or so visitors sat quietly in a small, dark amphitheatre in which the awesome animals on the grounds. Today's discussion was about a Wedge Tail Eagle named Jessie. I believe it was called a Lyrebird, a ground-dwelling Australian bird
Each day, visitors can hear the Keepers talk about the animals they care for and the Sanctuary's important conservation work. As we all sat silent, hanging onto every word as the Keeper described the bird on her arm, the bird suddenly flew around the room. The bird then landed on Fiona's shoulder. It was unbelievable, not so the bird, but the fact that Fiona was so calm and did not blink an eye when this all happened. The Keeper continued to talk and then retrieved the bird from its new friend. That was the lasting memory we took from our day at the Healesville Sanctuary.
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