Featherdale and the Blue Mountains

Saturday we went on 4 wheel drive tour of the mountains, a wildlife park, and Olympic Park. It was good fun and I got to mark a few things off of my Australia to-do list (i.e. pet a kangaroo - check, see a Tasmanian Devil - check). Every time I've tried to put the pictures in this blog, I've had issues with my Internet connection so I'm posting a link to them instead. See pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/roper.amanda/Sydney?authkey=1UhApAFJQFI

At Featherdale Wildlife Park the kangaroos roam free and it's a very hands-on experience. I was able to pet kangaroos and koalas, and I saw various sorts of other Australian animals that we do not have in the States, including the Tasmanian Devil, Saltwater Crocodile, the Dingo, the Wombat, and so many colorful birds that I lost count. A few words about the animals (because I'm a nerd and I love animals). The kangaroo is the national symbol and Australia is probably the only country that EATS their national symbol (they say it tastes like.......venison, not chicken). To give you a frame of reference, the kangaroos here are like deer at home. They roam free, they become roadkill, people hunt and eat them, and they have a huge population. There are only about 20 million people in the whole country of Australia; there are at least 40 million kangaroos. There are many, many species - no, they aren't all big red ones like you are picturing in your head. The female kangaroos have a very unusual ability: they can reserve an embryo for up to two years. It works like this: Mama Kangaroo usually has two babies at once, an older one that stays with her and a joey in the pouch (for up to six months), plus the reserved embryo. When the kangaroos are hunted by Dingos, the Dingo goes for the slowest - the mother, because she is weighted down by the joey. Mama Kangaroo sacrifices the joey and brings the reserved embryo out of hibernation (or something like that) to develop into a new baby. I don't know how she does it, but it's certainly something I didn't know before I came here. The kangaroos were my favorite because they are inquisitive, like cats or dogs. Some have very soft fur and some have very coarse fur. I thought they were really neat.

Koalas sleep 18 hours a day, so they are pretty boring most of the time. They also do NOT smell like cough drops, regardless of what you have been told. They smell like wild animals (think Zoo). Anyway, the fur is not very soft. It's thick and dense and has a texture similiar to low-pile carpet - this is to protect them from the hot sun while they sleep all day. Also, they are kind of mean, from what I gather. We asked the guy that was supervising the Koala we got to pet if it was smart to put our faces close to it (because the people before us did); he said, "I wouldn't get that close to this one." It was busy eating, but I was still cautious. They have BIG claws.

The saltwater crocodile in my pictures is only about 6 feet long. They get up to 20 feet in length. It is one of Australia's top three deadly animals. And it lives in the OCEAN. That just doesn't seem right. Sharks? Yes. Jellyfish? Yes. (Someone died yesterday from a jellyfish sting, they rank in the most deadliest, too.) Crocodiles? Umm, I think I'll just stay on the beach.

The Blue Mountains are part of the Great Dividing Range - which separates the coast from the desert. They are called Blue Mountains because the Blue Gum trees (also known as Blue Eucalyptus) emit a gas that causes a blue haze over the mountains. I don't know if you can see it in the pictures, but you can in person. The mountains smell like cough drops. It was amazing to see the different vegetation here. One of the coolest things about Australia is that the plant and animal life is so different than anything I've seen before (even more different than the thigh-sized aloe plants in Spain). They have trees still that date back to the Jurassic era. Isn't that cool?

Sunday, we took a ferry to Manly Beach. I did not take my camera there, so no pictures, sorry (though, I'm kicking myself). If I come back (and I probably will), I'll take pictures of it. It is on the Pacific Ocean and there are stretches of beach mixed with cliffs and rocks. It's very scenic and the water is beautiful. It isn't Carribean clear, but its a beautiful blue-green color. The sand, well, let's just say there's no place like the Gulf of Mexico for beach sand. Manly was much more my speed than Sydney. It's a very laid back beach town with a 30 minute commute by ferry to the city. If I had to live here, I think I'd want to live in Manly. Who wouldn't want to go to work by boat every morning?

What else? Oh! I finally had a decent steak last night at a place in Darling Harbour called The Meat and Wine Company. They had meat. And wine. It was wonderful and I wouldn't mind eating there for the rest of the trip. That's enough for now. I have work to do.