Jarrahdale, Armadale Natural Resources Day

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Monday, 21st April 2008,
Keith Thomson was a great tour guide today. We first took a walk about around the subdivision he and Anne live in. It’s surrounded by Nation Forest of Jarrah trees and rolling hills……beautiful!!! Right off we walked past a mob of kangaroos…very interesting animals. The birds are very vocal here. They like to let you know they are around. We ran into a Joey (young kangaroo) that was in a fenced back yard and didn’t know how to get out (see videos). His Mum (mother) was on the other side of the fence in the forest and they didn’t like being apart. They kept calling to each other and after we walked by (I was between them which was not a good idea) she bounced on over to the young one and lead him down the fence line away from us. Keith explained that even though they can bounce quite high, they don’t normally clear fences.

Next we visited a reptile center near Armadale where we got to see all the different types of deadly snakes this content hosts. While there, the handlers brought out a very large boa constrictor for guests to touch and take photos with. He was quite impressive. We also were able to get very close to kangaroos and native birds with vivid colors.

Keith then drove us to a local water reservoir and around some other homes where I was fascinated with the local architecture. Aussies have taken the beast of several cultures (Asian and European) and blinded them together with their own flare to come up with some very appealing designs. It’s also noteworthy that they mix it up, meaning there is quite a verity of designs in each subdivision unlike where we are from where we tend to do only one. Note to self: Efficiency does not foster creativity, diversity or artistic expression.

We then visited the Araluen Botanic Park. This was a wonderful place with magnificent trees. Given it’s fall here, we didn’t get to see the flowers blooming but it was still a great visit. One plant fascinates me. The Grass Tree grows naturally in the forest here. Keith says it grows 1 meter per 100 years. Some of them we saw today were 3-4 meters in length.

We dropped in on Anne at the hospital where she works as an operating room nurse. Here they call the operating room the ‘Theater’. Roberta and Anne went out for dinner to catch up while us guys returned to the house. Keith made a great dinner including chicken curry.

All in all, it was another great day getting to see God’s great handy work.

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Comments

[Paula Stands]

Kookaburra
Did you get a chance to hear and see the Kookaburra bird? Sounds like you are having a wonderful time. Have a safe trip home.