Oz: Koala Hospital & Byron Bay

Jane and I started the day by visiting the local Koala Hospital on her campus. Let me tell you that the Koala is not a bear! It's a marsupial and please don't mistake it for any sort of a bear :) The Koala is a very protected animal in Australia. Unfortunately the hospital gets about 700 calls a year and nurses about 300 back to health every year. Most that come to the hospital either come because of a dog attack or were hit by a car. The interesting part about Koalas though is that they get many of the same diseases that humans do-- AIDS and other STDs. We are planning to travel to the Curriumbin Wildlife Sanctuary later this week, so I'll get some photos of Koala's there!

Another different thing about Aussie culture is their love for pies. Their pie is not a fruit pie, however. They have many types, but the classic is the meat pie. It reminds me of a pot pie, but it's fresh and homemade and you can get them everywhere! We also splurged on a apple & blueberry pie with ice cream - yum!



Following our pie and Koala excursion we hopped in our trusty Holden and cruised up to Byron Bay, which turned out to be a beautiful beach area with a lighthouse. Jane's friend, Elliot joined us. He's from China and is studying at Southern Cross University for a year or so. While in Byron Bay, we ran into a aspiring Dutch author who is backpacking here for a year. Australia has a very large backpacking community. Seems there are hostels in so many locations, it's a very accommodating country for backpackers.

As you can see from the photos, the lighthouse is beautiful. It sits on the most Easterly point of Australia. We were scanning the ocean for whales and other ocean life, luckily we did get to see a few whales breaching.

To end the evening, we headed to a pub in Lismore to play games with some of Jane's Aussie friends. Turned out to be a very wonderful day!