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The
backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains provides a
different type of landscape from what you would
find in the Australian Outback, but the kangaroos
thrive at the Center.
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DAWSONVILLE, Ga. — The
North Georgia Mountains are well-known for a number of
things, especially their incredible beauty with walls of
splashily vibrant rhododendron, towering forests, and
innumerable rushing waterfalls. The first gold rush in
America was here in 1828 in Dahlonega. (Ha! Bet you didn't
know that!), and it's the setting for James Dickey's
"Deliverance," the movie that managed to
incongruously put Georgia on the map. Once notorious for
moonshine and mayhem, now it's renowned for great
vineyards and wine.
And then there are the
kangaroos. Yes, by crikey! Kangaroos. It's fair dinkum
that the Outback has come to Georgia.
The Kangaroo Conservation
Center in Dawson County, in the heart of the mountains
about an hour's drive north of Atlanta, is home to about
300 kangaroos that live a nice, quiet existence among 87
acres lolling through the lofty peaks of the Blue Ridge.
Now that's a 'roo with a
view.
After stepping through one
of the most colorful gift shops I've ever seen and onto a
mat covered with disinfectant — "It's to keep the
kangaroos from getting any of our human diseases,"
explains Nicole Brown, my guide for the day — I stopped
in my tracks.
Inside a protective fence
that keeps out predators like coyotes and an occasional
feral dog, mobs of mammoth marsupials were everywhere
leaping and bounding across wide stretches of meadows.
Others looked clumsily oafish as they "penta-pedaled"
around, using their thick tails as a fifth leg as a means
of locomotion. While the penta-pedaling gait looks as if
it might be painful, I'm assured by Nicole that it isn't.
Those that weren't hopping or penta-pedaling were sprawled
lazily in the midday sun, catching a few rays and looking
fat and happy down in Georgia.
Outside of Australia, you
won't find a larger concentration of kangaroos anywhere
else on the planet. Founded by Roger and Debbie Nelson in
the early 1980s in nearby Alpharetta as a private wildlife
sanctuary and exotic animal breeding facility, the couple
later moved the operation to Dawsonville, where it evolved
into an educational center focusing on the protection and
conservation of kangaroos.
Eight species make up those
300 hundred hippity-hoppin' 'roos, including the western,
eastern, and even red kangaroos, who blend in easily with
the Georgia clay. Closer to the ground are the potoroo and
brush-tailed bettong, tiny rat kangaroos but kangaroos
nonetheless. The rest of the species are rounded out with
the agile, Dama, and Bennett's wallabies, smaller cousins
of the kangaroo. Bennett's wallaby is also known as the
red-necked wallaby, not because it drinks lots of cold
beer, drives a pickup truck, and live in Georgia but
because it has reddish fur on its back and shoulders.
Here are a few basics on
kangaroos I learned during my visit on that grey, misty
morning that soon gave way to brilliant sunshine. A group
of kangaroos is known as a troop, a herd, or a mob. Some
even call them a court of kangaroos (get it?). A female is
called a jill, a doe, or a flyer, while their male
counterparts are bucks, boomers, or jacks. The little ones
are joeys, and yes, they frequently hide out in their
mamas's pouch. 'Roos can high-jump about 12 feet and when
they're in a hurry can spring-sproing to speeds of up to
55 miles per hour.
"They're sociable with
us and one another," explains Nicole, before telling
us that each animal is named — there's Bindi, Amaroo,
Sugar, Oliver, Soleil, among the kangaroo court — and
most employees have learned to identify each animal by
sight.
The center also hosts an
odd collection of "Australasian" animals and
birds that live in Australia and the southeastern corner
of Asia including the smattering of islands between the
two continents. My favorite was the blue-wing kookaburra
— you have to love it that their babies are kooklets —
just because of its size and bright sapphire plumage, but
the assortment also contains other avian beauties like the
blue-crowned and Nicobar pigeons. Some of the more unusual
reptiles and mammals in residence are the bearded dragon,
ridge-tailed monitor, and the tiny sugar glider that seems
to have the DNA of 'possums, squirrels, and monkeys all
wrapped neatly together.
Tours of the
"outback" are either self-guided or held in the
bed of a 1968 "deuce and a half" safari-style
truck called the KangaRanger. With the focus highly on
education of the species, the center also hosts
presentations like Kookaburra Talks, Animals of the
Outback, and Boomerang Exhibition.
After spending a day during
your walkabout at the Kangaroo Conservation Center, there
are other sights in Dawson County to see within just a few
miles. Nearby Amicalola Falls State Park encompasses the
highest waterfall east of the Mississippi River, a rustic
mountaintop lodge with trillion-dollar views of the Blue
Ridge, and a home-style restaurant with good ol' country
cookin'. An eight-mile approach trail leads from the park
to Springer Mountain and the start of the Appalachian
Trail.
Dawsonville is probably the
only place in the world where you can say kangaroos NASCAR
in the same sentence. Dawsonville, the moonshine capital
of the world, is the hometown of Bill Elliott and the
Georgia Racing Hall of Fame. NASCAR was born of
moonshiners in their hopped-up cars outrunning "revenoo-ers,"
and the museum, an impressive display of cars and racing
and movie memorabilia, is Daytona, Indianapolis, Thunder
Road, White Lightning, and Smoky & the Bandit all
rolled into one. Although I'm a Georgian, I'm not much of
a racing fan (loud gasps here, I'm sure), but even I was
bedazzled by the Hall of Fame.
Dawson County is like a
treasure chest, and you'll have a g'day, mate, finding
little jewels here and there, like the whimsical Around
Back at Rocky's Place, a unique shop featuring folk art,
pottery, whirly-gigs, jewelry, and more from the South's
best folk artists including Cornbread and R.A. Miller.
We flipped for the
made-from-scratch "Bully Burgers" and
cheese-covered fries at Dawsonville Pool Hall that's
filled with more racing memorabilia. Don't worry about the
calories. Just hike them off at Amicalola Falls or find
your way out of the twelve acres and four miles of trails
of Uncle Shuck's Corn Maze and Pumpkin Patch.
Besides the lodge at
Amicalola Falls State Park, there are other unusual places
to stay around Dawsonville. For those who like roughing
it, the Len Foote Hike Inn is accessible only by taking a
moderately challenging five-mile hike to the lodge (and
five miles out, too). The inn stays booked up, so
reservations are required. Prefer a spa and the privacy of
luxury mountain cabins amid a spectacular forest setting?
Head for the hills of the serene Forrest Hills Lodge.
"You would never know
there was such a thing as kangaroos in Georgia,"
intoned Elisa O'Brien, who was visiting from Tennessee
with her two children. As they watched kangaroos lazing in
the sun, she added. "I haven't been to Australia, but
now it feels like I have. That's pretty remarkable, isn't
it?"
Kangaroos, Southern-style.
I'd say it is.
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IF YOU GO:
Visit
www.KangarooCenter.com or call (706) 265-6100. Visit
Dawson County Chamber of Commerce at www.dawson.org or
calling (706) 265-6278 for links to dining and lodging
options.
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