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Yesterday we had an early start for another rendezvous with Angie and her mom at Echo Point Park, armed with our contributions to a picnic lunch. This time we had the opportunity to meet Australia's "other" inhabitants, the various indigenous wildlife species at Australia's Reptile Park.

The park was established in 1949 by Eric Worrell, who, by 1960 was renowned throughout Australia as a naturalist, with the park becoming the first Australian "zoo" to breed the Taipan snake in 1955 and the first to import foreign snakes, including the King Cobra. In 1973, the park pioneered a milking program for the deadly Funnel-Web spider in order to provide the commonwealth serum laboratories with the precious droplets. The venom is injected into horses, which, surprisely, are able to withstand it, thereby allowing their blood plasma to be used to produce the serum.

Our experience, however, was far less dramatic, but one of the coolest, nonetheless. We got to see spiders, ranging from the Funnel-Web and Red-Back to the Wolf and Huntsman. We got upfront and personal with almost all of Australia’s poisonous snakes, from the deadly Taipan, Tiger, Common Death Adder and Eastern Brown snake, tge latter being responsible for more deaths than any other Australian snake.

Crocodiles, dragons and lizards abounded, including the Komodo, the Jacky and the Eastern Bearded dragons, the Blotched Blue-Tongue lizard and the Cunningham's Skink.

Native birds, including the Blue Stone Curlew, the White-Browed Woodswallow, the beautiful Major Mitchell Cockatoo, also known as the Pink Cockatoo and our favourites, the Blue-Winged Kookaburra, as well as the Boobook owl, the Tawny Frogmouth owl and the Cassoway, being the only armour-plated bird left in the world and the third largest flightless bird.

Besides the Platypus, though, it was the fury creatures that stole the show for us, including the Wombats, Echidnas and Quokkas (more spiky than fury) and, amongst our favourites, the various kangaroos and wallabies, including the Kangaroo Island Kangaroos, the Red Kangaroos and the Eastern Grey Kangaroos, where the latter has a superbly adapted breeding cycle which allows them to have three developing young at the same time, to take advantage of the unpredictable nature of the Australian environment and fluctuating food supply. A female may have a semi-dependent "joey" of 12-18 months, a pouch young of 4-8 months of age and an embryo held in suspended development until the pouch is vacated. Their long, heavy tails are used as a weight to counterbalance the body during hopping and they can reach speeds in excess of 50 kilometres / 30 miles per hour.

The Parma and the vulnerably listed, Yellow-Footed Rock wallabies, we're fascinating, where the latter are readily identifiable by their spectacular colours and flamboyant patterning.

It was, however, sad to learn about the devastating disease known as the "Devil Facial Tumour Disease" which is eradicating the wild Tasmanian Devils. The disease, not only has no cure, but is highly contagious and the only known cancer to spread as a transmissible disease. Once contracted, a Tasmanian Devil dies within six months in the most horrendous way. The disease was first detected in 1996 and is estimated to have destroyed at least 90% of the original population, with only 25,000 remaining. Programs such as "Devil Ark" have plans to repopulate Tasmania with healthy disease-free Tasmanian Devils was the last of the wild ones are extinct.

It was, however, the adorable Koalas that topped our list and we learnt that the apparent stupor and slow movements actually assist them by helping conserve their small amount of energy obtained from their diet of Eucalyptus leaves.

Although we didn't see any dingos, as they were hiding in there lair due to the heat, a fabulous day, including a picnic lunch fit for a king, was topped off with a visit to The Entrance on the Central Coast, where we had the opportunity to see the beautifully coloured Australian Pelicans being fed. A great big THANK YOU again to Angie for another wonderful day out.

Today, while far less exciting, certainly had the usual adrenaline rush associated with Elaine having to hoist Roy up the mast so we could replace our main halyard. After a job well done, we headed to Chatswood to meet Terence for coffee and get some provisioning done, before meeting Angie again, who helped deliver Roy's new mattress and our new solar panel. We also had the opportunity to video call the family in Arizona and, in particular, enjoyed a very entertaining "chat" to William who proceeded to tell us all about being "a big boy now" since he was no longer wearing a nappy / diaper or sucking a dummy / pacifier. We didn't get much out of the twins, though, other than huge smiles as they were too busy eating their dinner.

After our delicious dinner of Lamb Shanks, complements of Chef Roy, and the last of Elaine's birthday cake for dessert, another busy day came to a close!

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