Day 76: 17/11/12
I was awake bright and early this morning and debating whether to go to the koala sanctuary for the day or not. The weather forecast was bad but I decided I'd chance it!
I got the bus there, it was only half an hour away. There was a timetable of various shows throughout the day. The first was a sheepdog show, showing the sheep dogs rounding up sheep. It wasn't anything spectacular- they didn't get the sheep doing anything too fancy, but it was good enough. The heavens opened then and it started lashing rain. We were underneath a cover so we didn't get wet. There was thunder and lightening and everything. You could see massive forks of lightening in the sky. I was regretting my decision to go there but it passed after about half an hour and the rest of the day was fine.
After that I queued to get my picture taken with a koala, which of course I had to pay for. I didn't even like the picture afterwards! The koalas are really cute and soft to pat. I'm pretty sure the one I was holding pooed in my hand though! There was something left behind after him!! There was a presentation about koalas too. Lots of the information I heard in the wildlife place in Tasmania- about how they eat eucalyptus leaves and so very little all day. I knew they were born the size of a jelly bean and that their main development is in their mothers pouch. I didn't know though that when they are born they climb up over the mothers stomach and into the pouch, unassisted. Also, one of the main threats to the koala species is chlamydia- I wasn't suspecting that fact!! There were loads of koalas all over the sanctuary, over 100 of them. They were very cute and needless to say I have lots of photos of them!
There were lots of other animals to see too. There was a whole field of kangaroos that you could walk around. There were some kind of ostriches prancing around that field too. There was a huge colourful bird, not unlike an ostrich in shape called a cassowary. He looked cool. There were also kookaburras. There's a song about them so I was interested to see them. They're just birds, but they have funny heads!
There were wombats which were all asleep in under concrete pipes. There was a golden possum which was asleep in a tree trunk for ages but at one stage I passed and he was up. He was kinda like a big gerbil. They had one Tasmanian devil running around. He didnt make any of the weird noises or attack any food or anything! There were also dingos. I expected them to look scary but they just look like foxes or dogs really. I saw turtles and crocodiles and there was a reptile house with snakes and things. There was a presentation about snakes and you could touch them. He wasn't along at all, more leathery feeling.
There was a platypus there too. They are mammals, but they swim around like reptiles and they have a birds bill. They also lay eggs. They are a different species to all the other animals we have. The closest relative it has is the erachnid or something which is also an egg-laying mammal, but it is land based.
I went back to the barn area then where they had guinea pigs and chicks. I got to hold one of the little chicks who just felt all bony. They had little ponies and goats and sheep around too. They had another sheep dog demonstration then aswell as a sheep shearing demonstration. He only shore one sheep but there was lots of ooing and aaing over it. There were lots of Asians around and I think they thought he was going to kill the sheep when he appeared carrying it by its front two legs. It was a merino sheep (I think!), which supposedly has very expensive wool. It looked a lot more feathery than our type of wool. I think they said there's something like 70 million sheep in Australia!
There Was a bird of Prey show too. They showed us some owls and then two big birds- a sea eagle and something else. They made them fly back and over our heads to get food but they didnt get them catching anything really.
They had lots of birds around in enclosures, but they had lorikeets flying freely in the trees. They are really colourful birds- green, blue and red- the noisy b******s living outside Shane's house! They had containers left outside that they put food into at certain times of the day. You could hold the containers and the birds would fly onto them. They also flew onto everyone's heads. I have a picture of me holding the container but a bird had just landed on my head and flown off again before the picture!
I got the bus back ino town after that then and then out to the house. It started to rain as I was nearly home and that was the cue for the storm. Thunder and lightening raged all night. At some stages it was reall loud, it felt like it was right over the house!
I was talking to Mam and Dad on Skype for a while but we abandoned it when the computr started making funny noises! It wouldn't do if lightening somehow struck it!!