It was so nice to wake up in our luxurious Crowne Plaza Suite this morning. We cooked breakfast and had a family outing to the fitness center. We were all excited to get a good work out in. Ryan turned a rugby game on the TV and we spent a couple hours getting in a good work out.

Over the past two days we kept passing this little sign for a zoo with an arrow pointing down a dirt road. We decided it would be fun to go check it out on our way back to Umina Beach. We told Ray we were thinking about doing this and it turns out he knows the owners of the zoo and he highly recommended we stop by.

The Hunter Valley Zoo is a small hands on zoo where you get to interact with a lot of the animals. We had so much fun. Naturally our first stop was the kangaroo pen. There were about 8 kangaroos and 4 wallaby's in a very large area. We purchased some roo food which they gave to us in ice cream cones. The animals see the tourists coming with their bags full of ice cream cones and get so excited it is sometimes hard to get into the pen. This was one of the most amazing experiences to run around and feed and pet the kangaroos. They were so gentle and smart and entertaining. It was hard to pull ourselves away from them and go see the rest of the zoo.

Next we stopped by the Koala Bear pen. Leann (owner and zookeeper) allowed us to come into the pen and pet the koala (Budgi)and take pictures with him. He was very soft and very curios. He did not move much but his ears and eyes followed us around as we moved and talked.

We then let ourselves into the goat and deer pen. We could barely get through the gate and we had a dozen animals jumping on us to feed them. It was quite entertaining. The goats wag their tails and behave like dogs. I had never been so close to a deer before but they came right up to us as well. I am pretty sure they think they are goats. We ran out of food but the animals did not believe us and kept insisting we had more. One little guy stuck his head in Ryan’s bag and took off with it stuck on his head. It was so cute and funny we almost died laughing.

After the goats we headed to the aviary. We were barely in the door when a Rainbow Lorikeet jumped on me and started eating my ice cream cone full of birdseed. He was very cute but did not want to share. I tried to get him off me to visit with some other birds but he was very persistent. He finally went to Ryan for a while. In the end we had to leave the ice cream cone behind so we could exit the cage.

Next it was monkey feeding time. The monkeys were very well cared for and very active and very entertaining. It was hard to get good pictures through the fencing.

We checked out the Alligators, Emus, Wombats (otherwise known as Rodents of unusual size), Tazmanian Devils and various lizards. In the end we enjoyed the Kangaroos the most. We had so much fun. We thanked Jason and Leann (the owners) and the rest of the staff and headed back to Umina Beach. Lesley took the scenic route on the way home through the rolling hills and small mining towns.

Ryan treated us all to a fancy dinner tonight. Ray picked a place that served a lot of local Australian style cuisine. We had barramundi, perch, oysters, prawns, emu, kangaroo, crocodile and yabbies. Yabby is a large crawfish native to Australia that tastes a lot like lobster. We all liked the emu the best but everything was delicious. Most of the restaurants here are BYO so we were able to bring a couple of bottles of wine with us that we picked up on our trip to Hunter Valley.

Today was one of my favorite days so far.