My daughter-in-law consistently plans nice trips for their family every vacation. This summer, they came to visit us after a day trip to Kangaroo Park, a 45 minute drive from us. She told me she was able to buy tickets for a discounted price using a pass that her work offers everyone there, and told me she’s allowed to buy tickets for extended family members if we were interested.

Since the older boys plan their own trips, and the younger boys are happy to stay local, we really haven’t done many official outings for a long while. Getting tickets at less than half price was a great opportunity, and this is a wonderful place to visit, so I asked my dil1 (my first daughter-in-law) to buy tickets on our behalf. She did, and told me they need to be used by the end of 2022.

Yesterday ds10 needed to stay home for a blood test and the weather was beautiful, so it was the perfect time to use our tickets! The park was very quiet – one of my favorite things about doing trips as a homeschooling family over the years is that we can go off-season when it’s quiet and relaxing. I don’t enjoy crowds at all.

The only negative is that ds13 couldn’t join us, because he had planned his first solo trip by bus to Beit Shemesh for that day. He was away for a couple of days and it was very empowering for him to successfully travel alone to a different part of the country. He enjoys staying in touch with friends there and now he won’t be dependent on me driving him to see them. That’s freeing for me, too! I was so glad that ds15 could come with us.

Right after we got there, they announced that the large parrot aviary was open for fifteen minutes, so we went there. It was interesting but the parrots were shrieking in alarm because they had been given a new plant that they didn’t recognize, and it was very loud.

The docent told me that in another fifteen minutes, she’d be doing a presentation at the small parrot aviary. That was a highlight for us. Usually each participant is given one skewer with a piece of apple to feed the parrots, but we were the only ones there at first (and even afterwards just one other family of three came in), so we were given two skewers each – and then we got a second round with another eight skewers. Each skewer represented an opportunity to have an interaction feeding a parrot, either on a wooden perch or with one of us serving as the human perch. It was really nice.

There are 52 kangaroos in a large grassy enclosure, all of whom are very gentle and used to people. There’s an option to buy pellets to feed them, which was fun but more of our time was simply stroking them and being alongside them.

We took our time there, and sat down next to a group of kangaroos for a long while. It was so pleasant.

This is a mother kangaroo with a joey in her pouch. It was fascinating to me to learn about the birth and development of a joey inside the pouch. He is born tiny, the size of half a peanut, then climbs into the pouch where he literally gestates for months until he’s ready to climb out.

I noticed an adolescent male kangaroo engaging in behavior that the docent said the alpha male wouldn’t allow if saw it. I asked the docent what would happen if the alpha male was there. He told me he wouldn’t have to do very much to show his displeasure, since he has such a dominant presence that the teen kangaroo would quickly stop doing what he was doing if the alpha expressed displeasure.

Ds5 saw this water and quickly peeled off his socks and shoes, rolled up his pants and sat down to enjoy swishing his legs in the water.

Ds10 and ds5 were having a great time for a long while running up and down a ramp that led to a second floor structure. At one point ds5 ran down the ramp and didn’t go back up. After waiting several minutes for him, I took a quick look around. I found him sitting across from the pond, watching the black swans swimming. Just being in the moment.

Nowadays our attention spans are much shorter and we expect to be quickly entertained wherever we go, but when in a natural setting like this, gratification isn’t instant and you need to take more time to absorb the experience and let it settle into you. That’s something I really, really appreciated about going when there was hardly anyone there – we could take our time, go at our own pace without distractions and experience the park in the moment.

This space for inner quiet is something that I deeply appreciate, and I’m so glad we had an opportunity for a trip that was a lot of fun, while also giving us together time, and personal inner quiet time.

Avivah