Kelly Hill Conservation Park 7.5 mile hike

We started the day with another lovely breakfast. They packed us a backpack with water, snacks, first aid kit, and an emergency 2-way radio. They dropped us at the trailhead and we were on our own.

We came across a momma kangaroo and her joey, who was nursing.

 Momma left and the joey stared at us for a bit before running off.

Here is a picture of marks that their tails leave on the trail. If you look closely you will see their little paw prints.

Kangaroo fun facts:

A female can have a nursing joey, a baby in her pouch, and can be pregnant all at the same time😳

She can pause or self abort a pregnancy as needed.

While we were hiking we came across a bear in the woods.

On closer inspection, we discovered that it was really just a burned tree😀

A little bit later we were pleasantly surprised to see these cute koalas .

Koala fun facts:

They sleep 20 hours a day.

They eat eucalyptus but only from about 10 of the 900 species of eucalyptus trees found in Australia.

We also saw these not as cute goannas

Then we were even more surprised to spot this guy, who hid his face under a log.

This is an Echidna -like our porcupine but their quills don’t detach and they are made of the same material as our fingernails.

A group of cormorants resting on a log

We were told that for a part of the hike we should hold sticks above our heads to protect us from dive bombing magpies. We didn’t see any and think they just want us to look silly.

This is called a punt. It is a tiny ferry to cross the river.

The view from the beach at the end of a great hike

17 of the world’s most poisonous snakes can be found in Australia, luckily we did not see any of them.