Warrawong Wildlife Sanctuary

Good Monday evening to you. Been up at the Sanctuary (WWS) since Saturday and it has been a mixed experience.

Bethany and I got the bus from Adelaide up into the beautiful Adelaide Hills - rolling vistas, tree-lined roads, VERY expensive houses (lots of $$$$ up here) and got off at Stirling, a quite large village with cafes, traditional stores like butchers, florists, greengrocers etc and were collected by a member of staff from WWS.

We are staying in eco-cabins, which are essentially made from canvas and wood, out under the trees and with no artificial light around, the night skies are beautiful (Orion is upside down here!). The cabins get very hot during the day but I have to have a quilt on at night as the temperature really goes down with the clear skies. Saturday, we had a short intro to the place by the owners, and then were pretty much left to our own devices, nothing planned, no work. A fire ban (temperatures over 38degC) meant that we were not even allowed down into the Sanctuary, so the time passed very slowly and both of us felt exhausted with the heat and rising humidity so slept for quite a bit of the afternoon.

The good thing about later in the day was that I joined a Nocturnal Walk and saw loads of wildllife: potoroos, bandicoots, wallabies, of all sizes and colours, Western Grey and Red Kangaroos, many platypuses in the lake (which was a total bonus as they are very shy creatures and don't like human company), and turtles, and then....a male koala, making a huge snorting and grunting noise (a cross between a pig and a walrus!!), and sitting about 5ft away from our group. He was amazing to see: white and brown coat, white on nose with a black tip to it, white tufty ears, claws like razors and just sitting there, snorting away at the other one high in the tree!.

Today Monday we had an intro to some of the work we will be doing. Unfortunately the spec that we were sent by our agents has been changed radically by WWS and both are disappointed that we won't be working with the animals as much as expected. We have to do a perimeter fence walk/patrol of 3 km, to check if any animals have got caught in the electric fence, and it is a nice way to pass the time, and see all of the WWS and its various habitats. I think it is also a quiet time here with the school kids on holidays (no school camps etc). I will assess what I do later in the week, but may be leaving here earlier than I had expected. We'll see, but I may also be seeing more of Adelaide than I had anticipated (which is good as it is a nice city).

Will contact people by email later but I have run out of time on here.

Bye for now