Critter Day

Mon, Nov 30, 2009

Had a great day today, getting my Australian critter fix. Our first stop was at Glenbrook National Park, where we were told the chances were very good at seeing kangaroos in the wild. It was an overcast day, so even though it was about noon, odds were good they would still be out instead of hiding from the hot sun in the bush. Sure enough, when we got there we met a couple coming back to the car park and they directed us toward a river bed where they had just seen a kangaroo napping. We headed that way and soon saw a kangaroo standing up nibbling on grass. I was so excited. We both had our cameras out snapping away through the shrubbery as we didn’t know how long he would hang around and if we would see another. In the end, we were able to get quite close, and saw a second one. Turns out we had a mama and papa roo and mama must have had a little joey in her pouch because she kept sticking her head down there, pulling it open and licking at something. They’re really fun to watch because their behavior is very like that of small children… lots of eye rubbing, scratching and stretching. I kept thinking of the dance program we had seen at Tjupukai and how the one guy had imitated the kangaroo so perfectly.

Driving out of the park, we had to wind ourselves back up through the switchbacks that had brought us down, but this time we saw things from underneath instead of above. We could see that what had looked like solid rock formations coming down were actually rock shelves with the underlying limestone eroded right out from beneath it. The limestone was honeycombed and was a honey brown color – it looked to me just like that Christmas candy that’s foamy and airy (sponge candy?).

From there we went to Featherdale Zoo, which is quite small, but they had exactly the things I was looking for AND a lot of the critters were out of cages just hopping around. The koalas were in open enclosures; had they wanted to leave, they certainly could have. They were extremely mellow though – stoned on eucalyptus. When we first saw them they were just hanging in their trees snoozing or watching us with lazy eyes. About 2:00 the keepers came around with fresh branches of eucalyptus and suddenly the koalas were on high alert (for a koala, that is). They didn’t exactly scramble for the new stuff; more like ambled – like someone sleeping off a bender who suddenly catches a whiff of hot coffee. They were hilarious to watch… very dozy fellows. There is one area where they have single branches and a koala on each so if you want to have your picture taken with one, it’s very easily done. You can take the photo with your own camera and don’t have to fork out $20 for their stupid picture. There wasn’t a large crowd at the zoo, so we were able to hang out with them as much as we wanted.

Nearly all the kangaroos were in areas where they could go to get away from humans if they wanted – just some posts with a single rail about thigh high. Inside that area, no humans. However, the kangaroos were free to hop in and out as they please. There are bins of kangaroo chow with ice cream cones for scoops, so if you want to feed them, you can. You don’t need to, though, to get close to them. We were able to walk right amongst them. Heck, there was one area where they were all laying around and you practically had to step over them to get through. So we got in a good deal of time scratching and petting the roos.

We also got to see a couple of cassowarys, which are like colorful emus, and an endangered species. They are quite big – probably about 4 feet tall. They have a weird bony cap on their heads and a strong looking beak and when they tilt their head to look at you, they have a very velociraptor look to them. I wonder if Spielberg took inspiration from these guys.

We saw carnivorous bats in the nocturnal house. Once our eyes adjusted to the dark, we could see them hanging around. We noticed one little guy hanging right up next to the glass and realized there was just a solitary bird leg hanging down from its mouth. Gross. And then he started munching on it. We watched, I horrified, as the leg gradually disappeared, like a kid working on a piece of string licorice. Ick.

We tried to see the wombats, but they were curled up inside their log, sleeping, so as Jeff says, all we saw were wombutts. The Tazmanian Devil reminded us a little of Luke – low to the ground and all muscle. He was curious and kept coming over to look up at us. His face was kinda cute, but the underbite and sharp bottom teeth were a dead giveaway that you don’t want to mess around with that fellow. We made sure we were there at his feeding time and the young man feeding him told us he had been bitten by him some time back and it required hospitalization and three surgeries to repair. I won’t elaborate on what taz had for lunch. Like the bat lunch, it was gross.

By the time we left, I had seen nearly all the animals I had hoped to see on this trip. The only ones I didn’t get to see were the kiwi (in NZ) and a platypus. Not bad.