A very "Australia" kind of day

For the last week and a half, we've been lucky to have visitors here in Adelaide! My parents came to visit earlier on, and now Ryan and Tiffany (my brother and sister-in-law) are here. We've loved having company, but I guess it has thrown off my blogging schedule a little bit :) So I'll kind of work in reverse order as I catch up over the next few days. 

Today we had a quintessential Australia day with a trip to Cleland Wildlife Park. This is quite a ways outside the city, winding up through the hills to the east of the city. On the way there, our bus made a quick stop at Mt Lofty, where we had a beautiful view of Adelaide, the city we've really grown to love over these past months.

I'm not sure if you can see this, but the entire city center is surrounded by park lands (look for the darker green square). Adelaide is the only city in the world designed this way! The blue beyond the city is the ocean - one of our favorite things about living in Adelaide.

Here we are at Mt. Lofty:

Then: off to Cleland Wildlife Park. This is kind of like a zoo, but not a traditional one. It is very hilly, green, and open. AND you can get up close with the animals! Here we are with Willow, a male koala:

Most of the animals aren't in pens, and they can roam freely throughout large open spaces. Obviously they are also used to being around people, which allowed us to get up close with them. Here is Micah FEEDING A KANGAROO!! There are many different breeds of kangaroos throughout Australia, and this one is a Kangaroo Island Kangaroo. We visited Kangaroo Island last weekend, which I'll post more about later.

Eli feeding a wallaby! I didn't notice, but this wallaby had a joey in her pouch too!

Want to know the difference between a wallaby and a kangaroo? Kangaroos are generally larger, and their bone structure extends all the way through their tail, so they can use their tail for balance. Wallabies have no bones in their tail and it kind of just drags along behind them.

Kangaroo:

We saw lots of common Australia animals, including a rainbow lorikeet:

An echidna:

And a wombat!

This was Micah's favorite; the potoroo. While he exclaimed, "Aww, so CUTE!" every time he saw one, we all agreed Aunt Melanie would NOT like the potoroo, as it looks kind of like a mouse, but is the size of a large guinea pig, and they scurried about everywhere, to the point you could have almost stepped on one.

Good times at Cleland Wildlife Park!