G'day mate, part 2...

Probably my favorite experience in Perth was Caversham Wildlife Park. It's full of native animals that we don't usually get to see or touch in North America. We got to pet koalas, see gigantic bats called flying foxes, and spent time in a kangaroo petting zoo. We could feed the kangaroos and wallabys and hang around with them for as long as we wanted! Several of the animals were ones that I'd never even heard of before that day. There are so many kinds of interesting marsupials in Australia, not just kangaroos. All the boys agreed that the little bilbys were their favorites.

I loved this baby wallaby. He was absolutely adorable. I wished I'd spent more time feeding him, but I had to fight my boys for the honor.

We met David's Aunt Sue and Cousin Jennifer (with husband Michael and Baby Sadie) at a great park. The boys ran around and played on the multiple playgrounds, and we strolled the trail around the lake with Baby Sadie. I'd met Aunt Sue a couple of times before, but I'd never met Jennifer before. It was so good to spend time with them all, and Jennifer gave us a ton of great tips about playgrounds and parks to visit.

 Australia reminded me a bit of North Carolina when it comes to beaches. It is just so easy to get to the beach in both places. You drive down a quiet road to a nice parking lot, you park, and then you walk onto the clean and lovely public beach. (There are some totally gorgeous beaches in the Philippines, far lovelier than anything I've ever seen in North America, but they are definitely not easy or free to visit.) Because of that, it was fun to just drive to the beach and run around for a bit. It was a little chilly because April is early fall in Western Australia, but that didn't stop us from getting a little wet.