Townsville to Mackey 395KM -237mi

The next Morning we got up and drove again not in convoy to the outskirts of Townsville and all met at the Billabong Refuge. Billabong means small pond in Aborigine and has been incorporated into Australian English. We had a small breakfast of sausage and eggs with toast coffee or tea prepared by the Billabong staff right next to the pond where we could watch the ducks and moorhens come and go. After breakfast we met our tour guide who took us through the small refuge and introduced us to the crocodile. wombat, and koala. We saw the cassowary, dingo and kangaroo on our own. While we didn't get to close to the crocodile the tour guide or ranger as he is called demonstrated their jumping and eating ability with a meal on a string.

Notice his or her contentment

The highlight of our visit was the cuddly little thing called the koala,

Everybody was impressed by the kangaroo.

The koala made the biggest hit with the ladies and as you can see Debby adopted one when we had the opportunity to take pictures with them.

It seems the dingo a small very skinny African wild dog was another of those introduced species that haven't been to good for the Australian ecology. I didn't take any pictures of the dingo in the Refuge but did get an opportunity to see one or two in the wild later in the trip. There was also one live cassowary which I managed to photograph at the refuge.