Emus and wombats

I don't do much when I visit my parents in Newcastle.  I never lived there so I don't really know anyone there.  Instead, I treat my visits as a time to relax and decompress.  Not too far from my parent's house is Blackbutt Nature Reserve.  It's a nice place for families to take the kids to see some native wildlife.  I didn't have anything to do so I thought I would go have a look.

The reserve is a huge area, but there is small part of the reserve which has been designed as a wildlife habitat.  It's in this part that you can see some native animals.  When I was there, the wombats were out and about, shuffling around and making their loud grunting noises.  I've never seen a wombat in the wild, only in sanctuaries and other locations like this.  It's hard not to like wombats.  They always look fat and they waddle when they walk at their own pace.  They are definitely one of the funnier animals in Australia and they never seem hurried or scared.

On the other side of the reserve were some enclosures for emus.  These animals look terrifying and enormous up close.  Some of them looked to be limping a little bit, so this reserve must also be a rehabilitation centre for them.

We kept walking around and eventually spotted some green and shiny.  When we got closer, we realised it was an emu egg.  I'm not sure whether it was abandoned, or if that's just where the emu decided it wanted to keep its egg.

The whole reserve is a nice place for a couple of hours.  Living in Australia, you don't often actually see the animals that are so famous to so many around the world.  It's nice to get close to them once in a while.