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Had a really nice day today, really long day, but really nice.
Got my case packed and ended up weighing only 24.1 kilos - whooopeeeee! Did send a package back home of clothes and a few souvenirs and bits and bobs (poor bob, I've been sending him home lots over the last 3 months - ho ho ho) and that only weighed 1.7 kilos so I knew my case would weigh a bit less. Also left behind a jumper, some shoe stretch stuff I'd bought in NZ (don't think it worked), and just weeded out my toiletries and things. So, managed to get my case down by 2.6 kilos - result!
So, went into the city for my wildlife park trip, which was really good. Only 6 people on the tour again, and the rest of them were all Japanese! A family of 4, another Japanese girl by herself, and me! It seems that the family had been on tours with our guide before too as he said he knew them already.
Was really quick to get to Bonorong so no nap or nodding off on the coach for me!
We saw a cute and fat wombat called Pixie first. She was a rescue wombat and was named Pixie because her ears were really big when she was a tiny baby, so she looked like a pixie! Apparently lots of wombats get knocked over and killed on the road, but if mums have babies in their pouches, they're protected by mum and generally survive. However, if they're not found and taken to a park or vet or someone like that, then they'll not survive :(
However, Pixie was found and brought to Bonorong and has been there ever since. She'll be released into the wild once she's reached maturity, which will be in another 6 months or so. They're so tame and gentle before maturity, that our guide was just cuddling her like a toy - it was ultra cute! However, once she reaches maturity, they'll definitely know about it as she'll start chasing them and growling at them when they try and get into her enclosure!
Wombats (I love them so much!) are apparently really good at defending themselves from predators too. They have three strategies - the first is that they can run super fast! For such dense mammals, with short stumpy legs, they can run really quickly.
The second is that if a predator comes after them then they run to their burrow but don't run inside, instead they flatten themselves to the ground just by the opening, leaving a small gap between their back and the top of their burrow. The predator comes along thinking that they can get at the wombat but grabbing it's bum and pulling it out. However, wombats don't have any loose skin or nerves on their bums and so predators can't get a grip on the wombats behind! How clever!
The third way is amazingly simple if a predator still persists in trying to get at them. Wombats have an amazingly hard bum and so they can basically crush a predators skull against the roof of their burrow if they've managed to poke their head inside. There have been lots of cases where animal skeletons have been found outside wombat burrows, so it does happen.
They're such cute little creatures, you just would never have known they had such good defense mechanisms!
I liked learning about wombats today :D
Also saw some Tasmanian Devils, and some baby ones too! Devils are apparently very bad at hunting and are also really slow runners - I think they can only go at about 40km per hour, so they'd be useless at tracking down prey. Instead, they're scavengers with extremely powerful jaws so they can crunch up all the bones and stuff that get left behind by other animals. They were called Devils by the first Europeans that came to Australia, because of the horrible sound they make when they're fighting over food. They lock jaws when they're fighting and so you can just hear yelping and growling and so on from them as they played us a tape (yes, a tape!! Remember those folks?) of some Devils fighting. It didn't sound that terrifying to be honest, but I guess when it was about 200 years ago and you're in an unknown land full of unknown things, then I guess it would have sounded very devil-ish.
Apparently about 2,000 Devils get squished by cars on the road every year because they know where to go for roadkill and so become roadkill themselves! They have a really good sense of smell, and so gorge on what's been recently run over to come to their own sticky ends. So, our guide said that if you do kill something by accident whilst driving in Australia, then please try and move the dead animal to the side of the road. Not only will doing that keep the roads a bit cleaner, if everyone did it then it would save 2,000 Devils every year.
The Devils themselves are an endangered species, and increasingly so. They have fallen victim of a facial tumour disease which no one knows how it started, nor do they think they will ever know. Apparently a female was found dead with some tumours on her face a few years ago and they thought it would be a one-off thing. Unfortunately, more and more Devils got sick and they found out that the disease is actually spread by contact. They think it's a type of cancer but none that they've seen before seeing as it's spread by contact and not by swapping of cells. As Devils lock jaws when they fight, it's an extremely difficult disease to be controlled. Thus, they have had to set up special isolation programmes for the remaining disease-free ones so they can preserve the species. They're hoping that the disease will wipe itself out (and not taking all the Devils with it) and so they can begin to reintroduce the Devils back into the wild but who knows what will happen!
Got to feed some wallabies and kangaroos whilst we were there too - nice tame brown ones that looked at you quite cutely and extremely expectantly when they heard the rustle of brown paper bags with roo food in! There were also some mummy roo's with a baby each in their pouches - they were sooooo cute! Some of the little babies, you could only see their feet sticking out :D
There was also the star of the macropod show - an albino wallaby!! She was the cutest and whitest thing there (apart from Fred the cockatoo, but he's obviously not a macropod) and had also had a baby a few months ago. However, her baby was old enough to be out of the pouch as she was just hopping about by herself. Our guide told us that he saw her a few weeks ago with her baby in her pouch and he said it looked a little strange to see a white mum and brown baby. She was also really shy as she wouldn't go up to anyone to get fed, which was a shame, but I guess by nature she would be much more shy than her other friends.
There were also meant to be echideas there, and I did have a good look in their enclosure but I couldn't see any :(
I was really hoping to see one, but they're also very shy creatures and I think they mainly come out at night so my chances of seeing one was quite slim. I did keep a look out on the sides of the roads too, just for a glimpse, but they were obviously not into being sighted today!
After the park, we got about an hour in a little town called Richmond. A wee little town that is just like any little town at home as it looks so English! It's got nice little greens, and a nice sweetie shop too! It's also got the oldest Catholic church in Australia! A small church, but still the oldest one of this huge island.
Rumbled home on the bus, and then had to sprint to catch my other bus to get back to Lenah Valley! Then of course the bus sat at the stop for ages as lots of other people got on it after me. Oh well, I guess that was my exercise for that hour!
Got dropped off at the aiport ok, and didn't have too long to wait for my plane seeing as it was yet again quite a small airport. Much bigger than Launceston, but all six of their gates were on one stretch and you could see them all in one go! I quite like tiny airports, but it does mean there isn't much to do. However, I had gotten caught by a lady undertaking a tourist survey so I filled that in whilst I waited. It was all the usual stuff - how long were you here, where did you go, where did you stay, how much money did you spend, yadda yadda yadda. I considered making stuff up to just screw up their data.....but I was a good girl and filled it in properly. Must remember to send it back to them as well....
Had an uneventful flight but it passed quickly seeing as it was only an hour and 50 minutes. I had also cooked my dinner before I left so I didn't have to have an empty tum, flll it with sweeties, or have to eat JetStar food which I'd have to pay extortionate prices for!
Phoned Margaret, who is Caroline M's aunt who I'm staying with in Sydney and found out how to get to her nearest station where she'd meet me and we'd go to her flat together. Lucky really, seeing as I had a big suitcase, a backpack, and another bag! Amazingly, I had packed properly this time and so didn't have lots and lots of bags! Having sent some stuff home and left some stuff meant that my suitcase wasn't too packed up either and it was actually level when I closed it and not all bumpy! Maybe I am getting better at packing....
It was also almost midnight by the time I got back to her flat, so I had had quite a long day.
It doesn't take very long at all to get to Rose Bay (which is where she lives) from the airport either, and it was only one train ride, so that's really convenient :)
Don't think I'll be up for doing much at all tomorrow, so I think it'll be another lie in for me :D
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