Australia Day 32 – Somersby Falls and close encounters with Kangaroos

Monday 9th January 2023

This morning we were driving to Somersby Falls, so I was slightly surprised when Pete pulled up after about 5 minutes. Apparently he’d scoped out some good sausage rolls at the Baker’s Den Bakery Cafe, so we shared one for breakfast. It was a decent enough sausage roll, though not the best we’ve had.

We then continued to the waterfall. The car park is right near the top of the falls, and there are paths leading to the middle and bottom of the waterfall. The footpaths are relatively short but involve lots of steps which were covered in leaves and were quite slippery. I can’t say Somersby Falls is the most impressive waterfall I’ve seen, but it was still a very pleasant walk.

We next drove to Walkabout Wildlife Sanctuary. The sanctuary has wild roaming emus and kangaroos, which was quite cool. Although I was slightly nervous around the emus, they’re big birds to be that close to! There were also other animals, including meerkats and koalas, which were inside separate enclosures.

Twice a day is the kangaroo and emu roundup, basically where they get fed. As soon as the keeper appeared with a big bucket of animal feed, she had a long procession of kangaroos and emus following her. It was a bit manic but very cool to witness. This ritual also gives the keeper the opportunity to count all of the animals and make sure none are injured or ill.

Perhaps the best things about the Walkabout Wildlife Sanctuary is that the kangaroos are so tame you can pet them. I was very surprised when we bought our entry tickets and were told how to touch them (on their backs only, if you touch their heads or shoulders they may mistake it as an invitation to fight!). I was slightly concerned about whether it was cruel or exploitative in any way, but I assume the kangaroo would just walk away if it didn’t want to be touched (and if it came to a confrontation I’ve no doubt the kangaroo would win any fight!)

We listened to the koala talk at the sanctuary (surprisingly we were the only ones who attended), which was cool as we got to see one of the koalas up close and a bit more active (as it had just been given fresh eucalyptus leaves). It was then time to drive back to Sydney. We went straight to the Novotel Sydney International Airport (our hotel for the night) to drop off our bags before returning the car to the airport terminal.

By this time it was evening and time to think about dinner. When we got back to our hotel, we found we’d been given a complimentary bottle of wine for our honeymoon. We also had a bottle from Hunter Valley still to drink, so now had two bottles to consume before our flight tomorrow. The hotel room was huge, with a table and chairs so the obvious solution was to order a takeaway. We used Uber Eats to order some Chinese food from JML DUMPLINGS Wolli Creek. The food was exceptional, we absolutely loved the pan fried juicy pork buns. The spring onion pancakes were also delicious (not at all greasy) and the beef brisket just fell apart and had an amazing flavour.

After eating, we relaxed with the rest of our wine and watched a couple of episodes of After Life on Netflix before bed. Tomorrow we fly to New Zealand.