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| An echidna was one of the many native beasts living happily at Paul's Place. This one is using his long sticky tongue to catch the termites Paul has just put in front of him |
| Erin's South Australia Journal 12-08-02 Part 1 Sunday we arose pretty early. I hadn't slept well, as it was very cold in the camper and the bed was smaller than we were accustomed to sharing, so a nice hot shower was a good way to wake up. We ate breakfast and planned our day, then got a later start, as our first stop was to Paul's Place and it wouldn't open till noon. We drove out to Stokes Road, then went the 11km of unpaved road out to the Paul's Place Wildlife Farm, only to arrive too early. No problem - we diverted on a few more kilometers to check out the beach at Stokes Bay, which was very windy this morning. Then we returned to Paul's Place a little after noon, just in time for the first tour of the day. Paul himself was our guide, showing up herding a mixed group of sheep, goats and cows up the road in his dusty little car, with his sheepdog hanging out the window behind him. He got out and invited us into the first pen, where a variety of chickens, geese, turkeys, peacocks and several kangaroos were lazing about. He brought a bucket of barley out and gave it to one of the men, and we all took turns feeding handfuls to the various animals. The turkeys and geese were very enthusiastic - painfully so, so we'd drop food for them, then go feed a roo by hand while they slowly helped themselves and held on with their sharp little hands. This was great! But even better was when Paul brought out a bottle of beer with a nipple on the end, picked up the largest roo like a baby and plopped her into my arms! She was heavy, but it was fun - and she didn't mind being passed around to all the women in the group, so long as her beer bottle stayed tipped up! Next stop was a pen with even more roos, some deer, sheep, and a bunch of tall emus. This feeding frenzy there was more amusing, as the emus were so tall that the bucket was in constant jeopardy, even in Glenn's arms, and the kids would end up running around with the bucket, being chased by the sheep and the 'demon emus' as they called them! I just sat and laughed. Paul was the perfect tour guide for this whole adventure, as his comfort with the animals and his enjoyment in 'abusing the tourists' as he put it was very evident. He would pick the person who looked most uncomfortable with something and made them handle it - aversion therapy! After this, we trooped into a paddock with a bunch of trees for our glimpse of the shy wallabies hopping around, and Paul pulled a small koala out of one of the trees. It was adorable, and we all got to take turns holding it. Then he put a man up against the fence (I'd heard ominous pounding from there while we were busy with the koala), and put some barley on his head. The huge emus in the next paddock knew the routine and pecked it quickly off his head, much to the amusement of everyone else. Several of the other men were selected for this bruising treatment, including Glenn! After this spectacle, we headed on, and I spotted the tiny baby koala in the paddock before we went on. |