Knocklofty park

It's Christmas! Although the middle of summer doesn't feel quite the same. Everyone is terribly enthousiastic though, wearing hats and decorating and stuff. Guess they feel Christmas needs all the help it can get. From my point of view.... it still needs more.

So on an apparently average spring-feeling day (summer here is in the low 20s in the afternoon), I set off to the botanical garden, as everything else is closed.

And even before getting there, I saw birds! Parrots, just free, and lots of other ones that I don't know, all screeching and peeping. I even got a wonderful view of a kookaburra! He didn't sing, unfortunately, probably because there was another bird on the same tree making a huge racket! Actually, without the other bird there I would never have seen the kookaburra at all!

The gardens were great, with tons of ferns and local plants.

They even had a subantarctic house, which was a small circular house with extremely well done paintings on the walls, so the cliffs and sea just seemed to go on forever!

I then went on to Mt Stuart and the Knocklofty park, where there were many more birds and flowers, and even 2 wallabies or small kangaroos! They seemed to have red coats, but with my red tinted sunglasses, it's a bit hard to tell. I also heard a snake but didn't see it, and wasn't going to wade off into the tall grass looking for it.

Today I was careful to wear my sunglasses as soon as it got too bright, and so only roasted a bit on my forehead and nose (the glasses protect the cheek bones).