We were due to land in Sydney at 6:30 Wednesday morning. The sun was just starting to rise, so I had a great view of the harbor with the famous Harbor Bridge and Sydney Opera House in the distance. We were met by Mama and Papa Snookums who bundled us into the car and headed back to the city. In deference to me, the tourist, Papa Snookums took us over the bridge so I could get a better view of town. Wow, it was gorgeous. Sydney bills itself as the most beautiful city in the world, and I can’t see that they’re exaggerating. We stopped off at Snookums’s sister’s house in North Sydney so the two of us could have a shower and a change of clothes. Then we headed up the Pacific Highway to Casa Snookums, about five hours to the north.

We stopped off at a highway attraction called something like the “Billabong Koala Centre and Zoo.” It was a rundown little place, but they did specialize in native animals. Here’s an emu that was trying to escape. Funny lookin’ things, aren’t they? We couldn’t get back to the kangaroo paddock because recent rains had overflowed the little creek we needed to cross. (We had no idea how prophetic that would be at this stage.)

The first thing I learned about koalas: if you call ’em “koala bears”, you look really dumb. They’ve got nothing to do with bears. Second thing I learned: they’re pretty boring. They just hug trees and eat and sleep. I’d have thought these were all stuffed if they hadn’t blinked or shifted every now and then.

Isn’t she adorable? Her fur was so soft and incredibly thick (I swear, like an inch deep). She just sat there patiently while we petted and cooed over her. *sigh* Oh, and please ignore the fact that I look like crap here. If you’d just gotten off an 8-hour flight and then immediately launched into a 5-hour roadtrip, you wouldn’t be exactly daisy fresh either.

Here’s Snookums holding the koala’s hand. Isn’t that cute? And check out those claws. These things could be vicious, if they weren’t so damn A) cute and B) lazy.

Even cuter – Snookums making a koala face. Since there were only two other visitors besides us, we basically got to play with the cuddly-wuddly thing as long as we wanted.

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