Australian Brolga

Back blip.
Today we were in Melbourne. we had arranged a tour with our friends and my parents taking in the mountains, Healesville animal sanctuary and the Puffin Billy Steam train.
It was 39 degrees and so, so hot! The welcome air conditioning of the minibus helped limit our time in the sun.
The animal sanctuary was great, if lacking in shade, with all of the usual marsupials you would expect plus some others we had not seen before.
This is a rather bold Australian Brolga which is a crane type bird that apparently does a dancing mating ritual during courtship but we did not see this during our trip.
Since the whole of the Melbourne area was on a fire alert they were not allowed to run the steam engine and we had to make do with the diesel engine instead. I think we missed out on the whole of the charm of the trip, but the journey from Belgrave to Lakeside was nice all the same.