So pretty much just a little recap over the things we have done so far since being here. cause at this rate i will never get to it.
On the second weekend that we were here we went to the Billabong wildlife sanctuary. Its about 20-30mins drive out of Townsville and they have enclosures of indigenous Australian animals. Its pretty cool. They had koalas, a wombat, snakes, spiders, crocodiles, kangaroos, cassowary, even turtles. The area was hit in 2008? by a tornado and pretty much rip to shreds a lot of the enclosures, so at the time of us going alot of them were still being rebuilt and alot of the animals had to be re-homed :( so it was actually alot smaller. Oh and they had Dingos (We are proud kiwis, but its really hard not to say Dingo without the Australian accent, hahaha) and don't forget the saying "crickey a Dingo aate my baaaby" I absolutely enjoyed saying that over and over again throughout the park. A little insensitive because it did actually happen, but it was so much fun to say. hahaha
here is the link for those that want to check out their website:
http://www.billabongsanctuary.com.au/native_animals.html
and for those of you who are coming to visiting, we will take you there. You need to spend the whole day their because you go to these shows which are lead by the keepers and they tell you all about the animals. The first one we went to was the cassowary.
This dinosaur looking creatures are actually pretty cool. What they do (Don't read if your about to eat) Is they eat the seeds and grass etc (herbivores) and their digestion system strips the outer layers of the seeds and then they poop out the seeds. And then the seeds being smothered in nutritious manure are given that vital chance to grow again.Which then rebuilds the forest. Cool cycle of life thing going aye?
After we went to the cassowary, it was time to meet the wombat - Nugget.
This is one of the keepers and they tell you all about a particular animal that they have. Here is the wombat. He is soooo cute. You know animals really do have personalities its pretty awesome. This keeper was telling us about how when the tornado hit recently they were forced to close for nearly two months i think. And poor nugget became quite sick, they got in a vet from Brisbane to come and look at him and they couldn't find anything. They changed his diet etc and he still didn't bounce back. But once they started the shows again he began to put on weight. and returned to perfect health, the problem was he wasn't on show during that time and became depressed. How funny is that..
After they talk about the animals for a bit we are then allowed to go up and meet them. He was so soft and cute, i wanted to take him home. But Daniel kindly reminded me that we weren't allowed pets at home :( hehe.
After this show was the Koalas. We missed this because we were exploring the other end of the sanctuary.... CROCODILES :)
Then it was time to meet the local common snakes... haha hahaha (nervous laughter) Pythons and Boa. these creatures we are taught to fear are bloody common here!!!
These photos are of a water python - She put it on the ground and came slithering for my feet - friggin freaky lol
This lovely creature is a bearded dragon. He was cute
BOA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BOA!!!!
and yes it is common here in northern Queensland! but rest assure i haven't seen one yet.
They also brought out a saltwater crocodile for us to learn about:
So i just added some more photos of other animals and the croc feeding. Daniel and I were holding the water python. BTW the snakes are highly venomous too. and the other photos we have are of a white/golden Dingo, Daniel feeding a kangaroo and the turtles. Then the bottom left is Goliath, the parks first crocodile and then bottom right is a kookaburra.
So that pretty much was our day. Pretty cool huh?
Next post is going to be Magnetic island.
See ya soon
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