Tidbinbilla

Last week saw us travel to the south of Canberra to Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve to help celebrate Belinda's birthday. We couldn't of asked for a more perfect day - the weather was sensational with bright blue skies.

Arriving before the rest of the gang, Grandad, Ella, Katy and I headed into the visitors centre to explore the exhibits which I didn't know existed. We tested our knowledge of animal footprints, touched a snake skin, looked at different animal poo(!), took a flyer and paper to make an origami pelican, touched many of the stuffed native animals (wombat, platypus, possum, kookaburras...) hunted for the frogs, lizards and snakes all alive in the various glass exhibits.

Once we finished at the visitors centre, we headed down with Al, Max, Mira and Alma to the adventure playground.  We played here and eventually Belinda, Abby and Zoe arrived followed by Shannon and Zaf and finally Em, Mica and Isobel. All in time for sausages!

One of our aims was to see the pelicans being fed at 1.30pm, so with our tummies full and some energy expended we hopped in the car for the short drive to the Sanctuary. This area is a large wetlands ecosystem surrounded by bushland and protected by a predator-proof fence provides sanctuary for a range of native animals. There are 2 resident pelicans - George and Mildred who are fed daily. From the cars our small army of children some on bikes, some walking and some in prams set out for pond 4 arriving just as the ranger did! While feeding George (above), the ranger chatted about the Sanctuary, the pelicans and other animals. Once George was full and the ranger had finished his speech, he asked if there were any questions. A couple of children put up their hands to ask questions like 'How do you know George is full?' Seeing this Ella decided to get in on the act, put her arm up straight into the air and said quite seriously 'How do you feed the pelicans?!!' The ranger was a little taken back but recovered to answer as nicely as he could.

After leaving George we continued wandering around the ponds until we found a perfect spot for a rest and birthday cake! Al's yummy chocolate cake was devoured by all and provided the much needed energy to complete the journey back to the car.

The ranger during his talk has told us that several platypi had be seen during the day at the area know as the weir. With 10 children I doubt that we were going to be seeing any platypi. We arrived at the weir and stood still (well as quietly as possible) and low and behold on the other side of the pond adjacent to the reeds a ripple appeared followed by a nose! We watched this platypus for about 10 minutes as it intermittently surfaced then disappeared again. My unimpressive platypus photo above reminds me of the time just after Andy proposed. We were sailing to some thermal springs off the coast of Tofino, Vancouver Island when we spotted some whales so out came the camera. It wasn't until these photos were developed (yes pre digital days - it was 12 years ago!) that we laughed at how many photos Andy had taken of the whales (or more precisely a small bit of their back) which was more difficult to distinguish in the photos due to the similar colour of the water and the whale!

While the gang headed home, we decided to say hello to Moe, the local koala who on our arrival woke up briefly before nodding back off to sleep.  Our drive home was complete with seeing a few emus and lots of kangaroos grazing. All in all a wonderful day spent in a beautiful place.