Hopping into life

I was a little late getting home from work last night; I had a phone conversation going but it was of the highest order and I wasn't about to cut it short. I made it home before dark though and decided I could still hike. I ripped off my suit, pulled on my hiking gear, grabbed a water bottle and headed over the road to the recreation park opposite my house eager to get going. I figured I had about forty five minutes of light but wanted to hike up to the ruins so knew it would be dark on the way home; Nothing a torch can't fix though. Off I went to walk off the days' stress.

The park is big, essentially a massive scrubland area, and there's so many trails I could walk for a couple days and not hit the same one twice. It's looking rather brown and crispy at the moment though, a result of a long, hot and dry summer, but in the not too distant future it'll be looking nice and green again and will remain that way through to the end of the year. I don't mind though, I like it both ways - It's quintessentially Australian.

Due to the scrubland setting the park contains a lot of native fauna like kangaroos, koalas, snakes (me no likey) and bird life like: Crested Pigeon, Australian Magpie, Little Raven, Noisy Miner, White-plumed Honeyeater, Tawny Frogmouth, Peaceful Dove, Horsfield’s Bronze Cuckoo, White-winged Triller and Kookaburras. I'm not an expert on birds but it's nice to hear them singing away as I walk; I like the Kookaburra best - Cool sounding call and a nice sound to hear at dawn and dusk - There's something uniquely Australian about it.

The thing with a lot of these animals though is they're often not seen here. In fact it's quite a rare even for me, someone who is here a lot, to see a kangaroo in the park and a koala, almost never! I'm always there at the wrong times as they don't move about much during the day. Koalas are up high in the trees and the kangaroos bed down during the day and emerge in the early evening through to dawn.

Today, due to the lateness of my hike, I got to see a few of these animals and I snapped this image of three kangaroos who were a little edgy but happy to sit as I photographed them. I cull kangaroos on a big cattle farm up further in the hills and the ones on that property would never sit like this with me so close...Getting shot at will do that to you I guess. These are protected, as are all kangaroos actually, and so seemed happy enough to keep an eye on me and pose for the shot! The little one was shy though; He's just to the right of the bush.

I had to lighten up this shot a little as it was getting too dark for phone photography but I'm glad I was able to grab the shot and share it here. I'm used to seeing them of course, kangaroos and other Australian animals, but to be honest it's always cool to see them across the road so close to home and I feel pretty privileged to be able to do so, to have the park so close and accessible; I only need to walk 50 metres from my front door and I'm in the park - It's cool.

I made it to the ruins, all the way up a pretty steep climb, turned around and headed home but had to break out the torch to light my way on the return trip.

Let there be light, and there was light...With a simple press of a button. LED Lenser is the saviour - Well, it lit my way home at least.

I enjoyed my walk tonight - It was a nice hour and a half of mind-clearing and sucking up some pretty nice fresh air. It's a legit way to end the day. As the weeks wear on I'll spend more time in the dark over there until in the middle of winter my walk will begin in the dark. It's ok, though I have torches and don't scare easily; besides, I know there a bunch of kangaroos and koalas keeping an eye on me so it's all good.