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Us and a croc
Yes, they really get that big. I'd be scared silly... The most exciting things that we did this week were discover the goodness of Greek Yoghurt (yum, caramel, or lemon sorbet, or passionfruit yoghurt, anyone? Yummm), and go to the Australian (‘Steve Irwin’) Zoo. I ended up not going to MARS on Thursday (and evidently missed nothing), because Jon, myself, Katy and Keith ended up catching a bus and a train to the zoo!
It was a little harrowing, because the bus was making a million stops we thought we’d missed the train at Toowong and would have to wait at least an hour for the next one. Fortunately, however, we ran and met a nice conductor who told us that the train we were looking to take had been slightly delayed so that we would still make it. Yay!
The train was initially very very fully, but after Central Station (where lots of transfer trains are caught), the car was suddenly very empty, much to our relief. The train was an express, so we got to Caboolture quite quickly. We caught the free shuttle to the zoo shortly after it opened, and headed in for adventure!
We saw lots of cool animals, including elephant, snake, bird and
Croc
Rawr! crocodile show in the ‘Crocoseum.’ The saltwater crocodiles are huge! It’s really amazing to see them out of the water, and even to see what appears to be an empty enclosure (because you know they’re hiding… waiting…). They are frightenly large, and I’d never want to run into one in the wild. Yikes! They can jump half of their body length out of the water, either up or in a forwards lunge, and if the crocodile happens to be huge (say, 20 feet or so long, which is a large but not unheard of size), then you don’t want to be anywhere near the river bank. O__o
One of the coolest crocs we saw was a freshwater crocodile, named ‘Mr. Freshy,’ who is at least 130 years old. He was rescued by Steve and his dad at the request of an Aboriginal tribe who recalled seeing the croc for at least 4 generations… the croc had been shot at by a hunter and had an eye put out and was hurt some. Poor croc! It’s amazing to think that that one was so old though, and still doing well.
We went to pet kangaroos at the zoo in
Baby Gator!
Lovely little fellow. ‘Roo Heaven’ (they certainly looked close to dead, and were not moving at all…), and also saw echidnas. I love echidnas! They are beautiful little creatures, and extremely droll in their shuffling, rolling gait and their adorable little faces. ^____^ I took lots of photos…
Another highlight of the zoo was the hands-on nature of the place. Right when we walked in, there was a lady holding a baby alligator (yep, they’ve got a few American friends there too), and you could pet a koala and feed the elephants. Feeding the elephants was fantastic! We ended up feeding them later on in the day. The keepers told us to grab a piece of fruit from the bucket, and hold it up for the elephants to grab. The lovely girls would just swing out their trunk and snuffle your hand, grab the fruit and pop it into their mouth. It was heaps of fun, and because there was no line when we did it, we fed the elephants a bunch of times! (Rather, I fed the elephants lots, and Jon fed the elephants once… I was a little excited).
Also cool at the zoo: blue-winged kookaburras (they have iridescent
Baby Gator II
A little squirmy... blue panels on their wings—beautiful! Evidently, however, they don’t laugh like normal kookaburras), and seeing ‘famous people.’ We saw Terri Irwin filming something with a giant white snake, and saw Bindi Irwin too, with a smaller snake, giggling on the sidelines. It must be really strange for Steve’s family—lots of the crocs in the zoo were caught by Steve and his dad, and the whole zoo as it is today was basically designed and made my Steve. It must be very haunting for his family to hear is voice giving the announcements around the zoo, be playing on video screens at the Crocoseum, and seeing his photo on the map, signs, etc…
We got a train back to Brisbane, having hitched the last bus from the zoo to the train station that was running that day (we stayed until a little past closing time). The train was slightly late, but we had to stop *forever* for track construction. It took us way longer than anticipated to get home, and we were all starving. Katy and I had packed our boys lunch for the day at the zoo, and my snacks (a box of biscuits) ended up being the hero—we
all ended up munching them throughout the day and all evening.
We got the train back to Toowong, and ate at Subway. We all absolutely inhaled our sandwiches; Jon told me (and I was pleased that this Subway does it too) that students who present a card get discounted food. Yay for being povo students! ^__^ We got a bus from Toowong to UQ (perfectly timed, too—we rucked up and the bus showed up 2 minutes later), and collapsed for the night.
Some of the other fun things we did that week: going to Hogsbreath Café with the gang (yummy food, and we ate lots of it. Jon and I split a giant piece of steak), eating at Pancake Manor the next night with the gang, again (so good! Love that place), and just in all hanging around. Jon and Keith fit into our group well, and we had heaps of fun. Trent also enjoyed having other males around—usually he’s stuck with lots of ladies. ^__^ I know Jon had a marvelous time with all of us.
The saddest part of the week was when Jon left on Saturday… I know it’s not too long until I
Otters
Meeeeehhhh!! Meeeeehhhh!!! Meeeeeehhhhhhhhh!
It's feeding time. get to see him again, but I miss him nonetheless. He needed more time in Brissy! I didn’t get to take him to the botanical gardens, to see Eagle St. Pier, Mt. Coot-tha, go to Indro, and more… 😞 He’ll just have to come back soon so we can do Brisbane justice.
Also sad was the fact that Jon didn’t get to say goodbye to Trent, Nell, Katy, Keith and Casey—we went out to dinner at Pancake Manor and got back after the rest of the crew had done out to see a movie. We had an early night, because Jon had to catch an early taxi the next day, and they all got back late (after midnight), so no goodbyes were said. He wished them all well via me, and hopes to get back to see them soon.
Since Jon’s left, not too much has happened. It’s been a fairly quiet last week of classes and I’m glad to be done. It was strange though, because Jon had been with me just the week before… Now I’m just trying to write lots of papers, etc. that will be due in 2 weeks. Huzzah, finals. I’ll let you
know how I go…
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Jon
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I miss you like crazy, Emmy! Those photos are great. I had such an amazing time in Australia. I can't wait to see you soon! <3 XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO