That's amazing how friendly the lorikeets were! :) The only time I ever had wild birds act like that, was about 22 years ago when we visited Abercrombie Caves and stayed in the cabins - I was feeding birds from hand at the cabin door, trying to be a sneaky kid and coax them inside.
And congrats on your gemstone finds too! :D Sounds like it was a fun adventure!
I couldn't believe it myself! Every morning and night we were there they visited....
I'm still yet to take the kiddies to Abercrombie, and we're are only in Bathurst so not far away. My Uncle used to be a guide there when I was growing up, so I was lucky enough to spend many a school holiday visiting my grandparents at Trunkey Creek and go to the caves :)
It was an awesome adventure, and I got the fossicking and travelling bug lol... I believe the Abercrombie river has gems and gold it in so that is on the to-do list :)
Oooh, that is lucky! :) And I'm sure the kiddies would love it there!
I think we originally went to search for gold ;) but I don't recall actually looking... my main memories of that place were me trying to coax the friendly wild birds into the cabin, learning what fool's gold was, and being too scared to climb into part of a cave because I was a chubby child and was certain I would get stuck.
That's more than what I remember of Jenolan Caves! The one memory of that visit was a bird pooping on my head in the carpark, haha!