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Published: September 30th 2010
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We are currently in Alice Springs and the weather is very clear, sunny and cool in the morning.
We visited the Reptile Centre and it was interesting to be there. We saw lots of reptiles, like frilled neck lizards, bearded dragons, file snakes, geckos, turtles, lots of skinks and snakes, crocodile, thorny devils. We watched a presentation and we got to hold some reptiles. I got to pat an Olive python, hold a bearded dragon and a blue tongue lizard and pat a Spencer Goanna. My favourite reptile was the thorny devil because I liked watching them race around the jogging track. They were very fast and active. They look like they have thorns all over it and its tail sticks up in the air. They have yellow and black markings and patterns.
I already knew reptiles were cold blooded and needed to go in the sun to warm up, but some other things I learnt from the presentation were: The bearded daragon nods its head to say ‘do you want to fight me?’ and if the girl or boy doesn’t want to fight they just put up a hand in a slow wave, but if they do want to fight
they just nod there head and it’s like ‘bring it on’. When it is threatened its back and ribs expand and go really flat to make it look scary and scare off the predator and it puffs out its chin and it looks like a big hairy beard and it changes colour to black.
The Olive Python looks slimy, but it is really squidgy, you shouldn’t hold it by the end of the tail or the head, you should only stand still and let it crawl around you. When it eats it can eat a whole cow or a bird whole. Firstly it wraps around the prey until it has suffocated and then it dislocates its mouth until it’s really wide and gobbles it up whole. It has hundreds of little sharp pointy teeth that face backwards so when the prey is going in the mouth it slides along the teeth and the prey can’t slide back out the front.
Australia has about 18/20 of the worlds most venomous snakes. If you see a snake you run away if you’re about 3 metres away, but if you’re close, like 1 metre you should just stand still because snakes are blind
and deaf and they don’t know where you are, they just feel the vibrations of your footsteps.
Lizards are different to snakes, but sometimes there are legless lizards that look like snakes. The way you tell it’s a lizard is because of the ear holes. Some lizards change colour to black so they can absorb more heat and get warm.
Next we went to Jay Creek to camp for the night. And that’s on my next blog.
I’m really tired at the moment because we have just got back to the bus from a 2 hour mountain trek. We saw a big red kangaroo when we were up there. We also found a little cave that might have been the kangaroo’s camp ground because there was some scat there and smooth hollows.
There was lots of Spinifex on our walk up the mountain. It was really spiky and dry. When Spinifex pokes into you it’s like someone poking sticks or pins into you.
The view from the top was really fascinating because we saw lots of green and yellow. We couldn’t see the bus, but we saw trees and lakes. We walked along the mountain ridge to a different
point and we saw the bus between the trees like a white smudge.
We discovered an old village. The village was an old town. In the old town there were old houses and Dad and I went in the houses and we looked at them. They had been vandalised because all the pipes had been ripped out. We found some doorknobs and we kept them to recycle them.
On the way down it was really scary for me, but it wasn’t for Dad or Mum because Dad was a brave man. We had to be careful of talus (broken down rocks) because it was really slippery. In some places it was so steep we had to sit down and stretch and slide on our bottoms.
Then we followed the water course down the rock face. We saw lots of locusts springing about in the grass. Dad tried to catch one, but he wasn’t fast enough, the locusts just flew away.
Then we came to the banks of the river and followed it back to our bus. I wanted to get there first, but Dad did. Now I’m just outside lying on a cushion and rug waiting for dinner. We have
been camped here out bush next to the dry, stony river bed (but there is a lot of water further down) at Jays Creek for 3 nights.
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jasper
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