Wallaby Feeding Stop -- Nature Up Close

In terms of trip highlights, feeding the ragged group of Wallaby's near a resort ranks up there as a unique aspect of my trip. They are small and cute marsupials who have very soft fur--yup. I got to pet a couple.





They do have some social issues, however, as there was some fighting over the food that I was feeding a couple of them. Seems the dominate males like to remind others who is in charge.

They were very friendly and the resort sold bags of special Wallaby food--some dietary formulated stuff I guess, for crazy tourists to feed to the animals.

One of the Wallaby's has a Joey in her pouch--and I was able to get some pictures of them together.

As it was nearing dusk and the area was a bit dark, the flash wanted to go off--but it made their eyes red. Turning the flash off though meant that that I was unable to freeze motion --so here are the two extremes in pictures.

For the purists in the crowd--these are Rock Wallaby's, that is according to the sign at near where I had the opportunity to feed them. I guess, according to Wikipedia, there are some 30 species of Wallaby's. In Wikipedia they are listed as the Short-eared Rock Wallaby.

And yes--some of them are really scruffy. These are animals living in the wild--not in cages. Sadly, I forgot to image the hillside where they are living so you could see their preferred environment. It was a vert steep, rocky, arid area.

Enjoy the pictures though--and it's OK--they are cute!