A WALLABY hopping around the streets may be nothing to write home about in parts of Australia, but it isn't generally something you'd expect to see in a village in the province of Barcelona.
However, residents in Roda de Ter did, in fact, on Friday morning.
For the uninitiated, it is not easy to tell the difference between a 'wally' and a kangaroo – the former type of marsupial is much smaller – and to add to the confusion, the Spanish word for the latter, canguro, is also used for 'babysitter'.
So police probably did not know what to think when they got a flood of calls from Roda de Ter saying a 'babysitter' was 'jumping around in the street'.
By the time officers arrived, the animal had been safely caught by concerned residents, who were speculating how he had managed to take a wrong turning and end up in a different hemisphere.
The wallaby's owners appeared, and explained everything: They are a specialist animal transport firm, and had just dropped off two horses at a nearby farm.
This said, it is not clear why they had a wallaby in their vehicle – although they may have been transferring him to a safari park.
Police are investigating their paperwork to check they are authorised to have this type of wild animal in their custody, given that stringent laws cover the welfare, possession and ownership of non-domestic creatures.
