With the weather improving each day, we headed out to Tower Hill Nature Reserve today, which is inside the crater of an old volcano along the coast. Along the rim of the crater emus wandered around, ignoring our presence. It feels really strange walking close to animals that you would normally only meet in a zoo, and without a fence between you and them. The only time they acknowledged our presence was when I kneeled down to take a close-up photo of one, and the two nearest emus kneeled down too!

One we were down inside the crater, we found even more wildlife around – lots of birds flying around and koalas in the tree. Spotting your first koala is a bit difficult, as they don’t move around a lot, but once you’ve worked out what to look for you can suddenly see them everywhere. We saw them right at the tops of trees, with the bows bending over as they reached out to the very tips to grab eucalyptus leaves. We saw them sleeping in the forks of branches, in the most uncomfortable positions. And we saw young koalas, making their first explorations away from their mums. We even got to see a koala with a baby on it’s back, walking across between trees. The girls loved every minute of it, and for a while even forgot about the flies that pestered us every moment that we were outside.