Savannah in Australia Part 3 (Sydney)

This is my last blog in Australia as Sydney is our last stop. When we arrived on April 10, we went to our apartment in Darling Harbor.

View from Apartment in Darling Harbour

The next morning we brought a ticket for the Hop On Hop Off Sightseeing Bus.  We went around the city, and we got off a few times. When we got off at The Rocks, we walked around a little and went to some Aboriginal art galleries. We had lunch at Circular Quay, where they have lots of seagulls, but they also have a few ibises!

Ibis

After lunch we went to the Sydney Opera House! It was really awesome to see it up close! We realized that the sails are covered in tiles, which we didn’t know before. We had a drink right outside, so we could look at it. We tried to get tickets to see the Australian Ballet perform Madame Butterfly, but all the tickets were sold out.  They told us we could come and stand in line and hope that someone turned some tickets in. 

Savannah in front of Sydney Opera House

Tile Sails of the Sydney Opera House

 After we saw the Opera House, we went to The Botanical Gardens. The gardens are really pretty, and there are some great views of the city. In one part, there is a big tree full of sulfur crested cockatoos! The tree is full of berries that they like to eat. The berries have a skin, a little juice, and a pit. The cockatoos rip of the skin, crack open the pit, and eat the seed inside. You can hear lots of cracking noises. The cockatoos in the tree drop a lot of little branches covered in berries, and there are a lot of cockatoos on the ground eating the dropped berries. If you collect the berries, there are a lot of cockatoos a few meters from the tree that will eat out of your fingers and climb all over you. Jack, mom, and I fed them, and dad had some on his knee.

Botanical Gardens - cockatoos in the tree

As we continued to walk around the gardens, we noticed that there are thousands of large bats hanging in the trees. There were tons of trees full of them! At the gift shop they told us that they are grey headed flying foxes. Later, on the bus home, we saw them flying around the city on their nightly hunt for food.

Bats in the Botanical Gardens

Grey Flying Fox

Bat in flight

The next day we went to Bondi Beach, which is a famous beach known for its surfing. Jack and I went swimming, and there were some pretty good waves! Unfortunately, it was too cold to stay in for a long. Our last stop was an opal and pearl cutters, where mom looked at some opals. We also went to another opal jeweler down the street.

Bondi Beach



Savannah and Jackson having fun in the freezing waves at Bondi Beach

The following morning our first stop was the Sydney Harbor Bridge, which we walked across. The views from the bridge are amazing! It was a great view of the water, the skyline, and the Opera House. We spent the afternoon in the Botanical Gardens and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Paul, Anne, Savannah & Jackson - Sydney Harbour Bridge

Savannah about to walk over the Sydney Harbour Bridge

In the gardens we saw a Wollemi Pine that until 1994 recently had only been found fossilized and was thought to be extinct.

Savannah with the Wollemi Pine

We also saw more bats, but around dusk they started getting really restless and flying around a little bit. We also saw them getting a drink at a pond. The way they drink is really cool. They fly really close to the water, get their chests wet, fly off, and lick their chests dry. We talked to one of park rangers who told us a little more about them, including that there are over 15,000 bats just in the park. They are considered a huge problem because when they grip with their claws they kill the trees, so next month they plan to move them to another place by making continuous noise. They just need to make sure that they don’t move to people’s backyards. We were really lucky that we saw them before they left!

We also went back to the cockatoos, and this time I let them on my legs. Once, one jumped on my shoulder and really scared me! They were a little cheeky, because when they were ready for another berry, they would give you a gentle peck.

After we tore ourselves away from the cockatoos, we headed to the Sydney Opera House. On the way, we saw the bats leave for their nightly hunt. At the opera house, mom and I were the first in line waiting in case there were any tickets returned. Luckily, after a really long wait, WE GOT TICKETS!!!!!! We were so excited! We went to see Madame Butterfly the ballet in the Sydney Opera House! We had great seats and the dancing was amazing, even though the end of the story is sad. That was an AWESOME night and definitely the highlight of Sydney.

On our way to see Madame Butterfly (ballet) in the Sydney Opera House!

The next day we went to the Sydney Aquarium, which has the largest collection of Australian marine life in the world. Definitely the best part of the aquarium was the platypus. He was really cute! We learned that platypuses and echidnas are the only mammals that lay eggs.  We also didn’t know that platypuses are venomous. We saw lots of fish, a gigantic crab, a really big seahorse, some baby sharks, some jelly fish, and we also walked in an underwater tunnel. In the tunnel we saw sting rays, a lot of different kinds of sharks, lots of really pretty and colourful fish, and some dugongs. Dugongs are related to manatees, and look a lot like them. It was an awesome aquarium!





Dungong is related to the manitee

The following day we went to the fish market. The fish market is the second biggest fish market in the world . Unfortunately, there is only a small section for tourists, and the main part is only for auctions.  In the section we went in, we saw big fish, small fish, lobsters, crabs, crab legs, eels, mussels, shrimp, clams, already prepared food, and a few restaurants. We had really good fish and chips there, before going to an Aboriginal art gallery. At the gallery, we looked at a lot of paintings, and my parents bought one that they really liked. After the gallery, it started raining, so we stayed inside the rest of the afternoon. When it stopped, we went and had dinner at Chinatown.

The next day it was pretty rainy, so we went to the Australian Museum. It was a very interesting museum, with displays about Aborigines, skeletons, what lives in Australians backyards, Australian animals, Australian birds and insects, and dinosaurs. They had a special exhibit on Birds of Paradise, about the birds of Papa New Guinea. Later that night, we were really lucky that the rain stopped long enough for the fireworks in Darling Harbor. That was really cool. The best part was the fact that they were really close, and we could see them launching off little platforms in the water in front of us. It was a great night!

The next morning we went to the Maritime Museum. The coolest thing at the museum were the real boats that you can go in. We got to go on a naval ship and a Tall Ship that was once used as a cargo ship.  The coolest one was a submarine. We went inside, saw the humungous torpedoes and also looked in the periscope. The museum was really cool too, with a lot of interesting exhibits. The most interesting one was about the child immigrants from England that came to Australia.

Today we went to see our last Australian animals at the Taronga Zoo, which is known for its incredible views of Sydney. We had to take a ferry from Darling Harbor to the zoo, which is an island across from Sydney that connects to Sydney by the Harbor Bridge. At the zoo, we took a cable car up to the animals. The view from the cable car was spectacular! They had the usual animals, giraffes, elephants (including a baby!), zebras, etc., but the best part was the Australian animals. We saw some very active platypuses, sleeping wombats, lots of very pretty birds, but no koalas L.  There were kangaroos, cassowaries, and our first Tasmanian devil! He was lying down, but sometimes he would get up and walk around. We also went to a bird show. They showed a few different birds doing different things. The galah flew from the girl to a guy in the top row of the audience who was holding out a gold coin, and the galah took it, flew back to the girl, and dropped it in her shirt pocket, and when she took it out and gave it to him, he took it back and put it on the guys hand. With the next bird, the girl put an egg the size of an ostrage’s egg and a rock on the floor, and he picked the rock up in his beak and slammed it down on the egg repeatedly, until he could use his beak to fully open it. They didn’t teach him to do that; it was just natural instinct, because in the wild when they eat one of those, it fills them up so they can go a few days without food, and it is extremely nutritious as well. Another bird we saw was the biggest eagle species in the world with a wing span off up to two meters long. It was a great zoo.

Unfortunately, we leave Australia, today on April 19.  We had lunch at a restaurant on Darling Harbour before heading to the airport.  It was sad to say goodbye to Australia and all its animals and the fabulouse city of Sydney.  I had a great time and really, really hope to come back someday.

Savannah in Australia Part 2 (Whitsunday Islands, Fraser Island and Brisbane)

            We are still in Australia and we just flew from Melbourne to the Whitsunday Islands. Our flight arrived on Hamilton Island.  It was raining, and we had to take a ferry to the mainland where we were staying at Airlie Beach. Our apartment was really nice, and from our balcony, we had a nice view of the rainforest.

Since we were sick and it rained for most of the time, we didn’t really do very much, but here is what we did do:

Definitely the coolest thing we did was snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef. We got up, went down to the ferry terminal, and took a boat out the Great Barrier Reef. On the way, the boat people tried to talk everyone out of going because the waters were really rough and they said 80 percent of the people the day before got sick. Luckily, we had seasickness pills with us and none of us got sick, although many other people on the boat got sick.  The staff ran around with paper bags for all the sick people. The waves really were rough. When we got there, we took a semi-submersible boat with glass on the sides and saw some of the reef. The coral was amazing, and the fish were really colourful and pretty. The coolest thing was the giant clams. The colours were amazing! Next we went snorkeling. Since there are sometimes jellyfish, we had to wear full body sting suits. The water was a little choppy, so we pulled ourselves around on the ropes. We saw more coral, fish, giant clams, and even a huge fish rolling around in the sand. The water was too cold to stay in for very long though. After we dried off, we went to the underwater observatory where we saw some fish, and then we did the semi-submersible one more time. Then we took the boat back and the waves were just as bad on the way back, but it was still such an amazing day!

The Great Barrier Reef

The other extremely awesome thing that happened was that we had about twenty sulfur – crested white cockatoos come onto our balcony. We fed them nuts, and a few even jumped on dads head, shoulders, arms, and when he was sitting down, his knee. I fed a few, but I wouldn’t let them climb on me. It was so cool how wild cockatoos would just sit on your shoulder and eat from your fingers!

The cockatoos find our balcony

Savannah works up her nerve to feed a cockatoo

Sulfur-crested cockatoo

The cockatoos put their crests up when they land

Savannah makes a lot of new friends

At the apartments, they had a ping pong table not too far from our room, and we played a lot of ping pong. We really enjoyed having a week of home cooking. Eventually, you get really sick of eating out, so we had a week of the food we would eat in a normal week at home. It was so good!

The only downside to the week (other than being sick of course) was the fact that it rained every day.

After a week in Airlie Beach, we flew to Brisbane, and then drove to the place where we catch a ferry to Fraser Island. We arrived on the island really late, and we drove to our hotel. Fraser Island is really cool and unique, because it is the world’s largest sand island (and a world heritage site).

Fraser Island

On our first day, dad woke up really early to go on a bird walk. Down by the beach, he saw dingo footprints and lots of little crabs with little blue bodies. Closer to the hotel, he saw two kingfishers. When the rest of us got up, we went kayaking in the mangroves. Mom, dad, Jack, and I were all in the same kayak (which was really a canoe), and our guide and two other people were in the other one.  We kayaked from down the beach and into the mangroves, where we learned about the different types of mangroves.

Mangroves on Fraser Island

Savannah & Paul on the canoe

After kayaking, we had lunch, and at lunch there were a lot of kookaburras hanging around, and a waiter told us that they are known to attack plates and steal food.

kookaburra checking out our lunch

After lunch, Jackson and I went swimming in the pool. After we went swimming, Dad and Jack went fishing, down by the dock by the beach, and they each caught one.

On our second and last day, we got up early to go to the beach. We looked for dingo footprints, but we didn’t see any. We did see the crabs that dad saw, pretty small with orangey – red legs and blue bodies. They dig into the wet sand when they feel the vibration of your footsteps when you come close, but if you stand still long enough, they come out and you can catch them and let you walk on your hand.

Soldier crabs on Fraser Island

After the beach, we rented a 4WD, which are the only cars allowed on the island because of the roads. The roads are like mud tracks! They are extremely bumpy, there are a lot of holes, and parts of it are flooded with huge puddles. The roads are surrounded by lots of trees and green, and there are some really cool trees called scribbly gums, which are really light colored tree trunks and branches that look like a little kid drew lots of scribbles on it. The scribbles are made by scribbly gum moths.

Scribbly Gum Tree

Our first stop was Lake Makenzie, which is often rated in the top ten  prettiest beaches in the world.

Lake Makenzie

The next place we went was 75 mile beach, which is on the Pacific Ocean. On Fraser Island, you can’t swim in the ocean because there are tons of sharks and treacherous currents, but inland there are over 100 small fresh water lakes and places to swim. We drove down most of the length of the beach in our car. On the beach, we saw the Maheno shipwreck, which was a luxury steamship that was being towed past the island but during a storm the rope snapped and the ship got wrecked and washed up on the beach.

Shipwreck on Fraser Island

We also saw some beautiful and colorful sandstone formations called “the Cathedrals”.

The "Cathedral" at Fraser Island

The coolest thing that we saw on the beach was …………………… a WILD DINGO!!!!!!! It was soooooooo cool! He was just trotting down the beach! We followed him a little bit, but he went inland to the underbrush.

Dingo on 75 mile beach on Fraser Island

Wild purebred dingo on Fraser Island

We also went swimming in Eli Creek, which is a really long, thin, shallow freshwater creek, and because of the current, it is like a lazy river. We ran up, and floated down a couple times, and we saw a few fish and a few small eels.

Savannah was the first to go in the cold water at Eli Creek

Savannah & Jackson floating down the (freezing) river

We also stopped at a store for water, and the store owner showed us a dingo that sometimes hangs outside of his store. He named him Rex. Since its illegal, he doesn’t feed him, but Rex still likes to hang out outside. The owner also told us that he hadn’t left the island for three years! When we went back outside and in the car, dad saw a huge spider and went out to take a picture. When he was out of the car, Rex walked by really close to him!

After the 75m beach, we went back to the hotel, where we went to a dingo talk, where we learned a bit about the dingos on Fraser Island.  The dingos on Fraser Island are the only pure breed of dingos in Australia, since they are isolated on an island.

The next morning we had to catch a ferry back to the mainland, where we drove to Australia Zoo, which is the late Steve Irwin’s zoo. The zoo had tons of animals, some of my favorites including our first Tasmanian devil, cassowaries (which look like something out of Jurassic Park), a very young koala, an echidna (which looks like a porcupine with a long nose), and we got to hear a koala make a noise for the first time. When a koala was trying to get up into a tree, there were a few other koalas in the tree, and one of them didn’t want him in the tree so he made a noise that was kind of a mix between a bird squawk, a grunt, and a growl. It was a weird sound for such a cute animal! We also fed kangaroos again, and there was one that grabbed my hand with his hands to get the food closer to his mouth. There was also a tiger show where they threw the tiger’s toy in the water right by the window, and he jumped after it. The splash was huge! We also saw two zoo keepers walking a cheetah on a leash, and there was another keeper walking a wombat! The absolute best part of the zoo, even the best part of Australia, was when we got to cuddle a koala! It wasn’t too heavy, probably the weight of a bowling ball, and very warm and fuzzy, and its claws were really sharp. It was awesome! At the end, we went to the animal hospital, where people bring in animals when they find them injured. In the hospital, we saw some people operating on a koala! It was an amazing zoo!

The weird looking cassoway bird

Savannah feeding a kangaroo

Savannah holding a cuddly koala



Savannah feeding an elephant at Ausralia Zoo



The wombat is quite cute!

 When we got to Brisbane, we went out to dinner, and from where we were eating outside, we could see a tree full of bats! Since it was getting a little dark, they were starting to wake up and fly around a little bit.  The next morning we flew to Sydney.  We didn’t get to spend enough time in Brisbane L

Savannah - Australia Part 1 (Perth, Melbourne & Philips Island))

Our next stop after Thailand was Australia. We arrived in Perth on March 21, and from the airport we went to our apartment. On the way, our taxi driver taught us an Australian word “bonza” which means awesome.

In Australia, they are ending summer and starting fall, so our first day in Perth was really hot. We went to the Caversham Wildlife Park, where we saw our first Australian animals. The first thing we did was see the Wombat and Friends show. We got to stroke a blue tongue lizard and a possum, and we saw three birds, my favorite was a rainbow lorikeet, whose colours were amazing! Those were just the friends. The star of the show was a wombat!! We got to stroke him as well. It was really cool! They are a little chubby, very furry, and extremely cute! Although they look chubby, they are all muscle, because they spent all their time digging holes and little dens.

Blue Tongued Lizard



With our new friend the wombat - isn't he cute??



Rainbow Lorikeet

After the show, we looked around the rest of the park. We saw fruit bats, sugar gliders, lots of birds (my favorite were the cockatoos, the kookaburras, and the emus, who make a drumming sound from their throat), and more wombats. Unfortunately, the Tasmanian devil exhibit was under construction. We got to see the sugar gliders and fruit bats being fed, which was really cool. Other than the wombats, the two coolest things in the park were the koalas and kangaroos! We got to stroke the koalas on their backs. They were really soft! The one that we petted was named Sadie. We learned that koalas are not very active and sleep 18 – 20 hours each day. The reason for that is, since they only eat eucalyptus leaves because they are in the trees and there are too many predators on the ground, the leaves only give them 2 – 3% protein in their diets, so they don’t have enough energy to be active. We also learned that they are not normally very nice.

The kangaroos were the coolest thing ever!!!! They had a big bin of food, and we got to feed and pet them! They were really gentle, and they ate right out of our hands. Some of them were pretty big, and when you went to the food bin in the corner, some of them would pin you up against the fence. They would also come bounding up to you if you had food. A few of the females had joeys in their pouches, and we even saw one stick its head and legs out. It was really awesome to see kangaroos in person and not just in pictures! They had long faces, thin hair, huge hind legs, and really thick tails. There were also a few wallabies in there, and they were a little bit smaller. We spent a really long time in there!

Savannah feeding a kangaroo

This rather large baby kangaroo actually got into his mother's pouch!!



Savannah feeding a rare white kangaroo



Joey sticking her head out of the pouch

The next day was our last day in Perth. In the morning, we took a bus to Kings Park, where we walked around and looked for birds. The trees and flowers and the park itself was very pretty, and in one place, there was an amazing view of Perth, where we could see a lake, all of the buildings, lots of green, and clear, blue, non – polluted skies. After the park, we took a flight to Melbourne.

Perth Australia

Our first day in Melbourne, we went to a market, an old jail, and took a tram around Melbourne. At the market, there was a lot of Aboriginal art, like paintings, decorated boomerangs and didgeridoos, and more. They also had Australian opals, which were really pretty because of the many colours inside them. They also had lots of knick knacks, and things like hats, shoes, and clothes.                       

After lunch, we went to the Old Melbourne Gaol (that is how Australians spell jail). After the Aborigines, who were the first human inhabitants of Australia, the next settlers were British convicts. At the jail, we saw some of the cells, which were very small, and we went on a tour. In the cells, they had stories about the prisoners in there, and most of them were eventually hung. We learned that the hangmen were prisoners themselves, and they were rewarded with either money and/or a shorter sentence. On the of the city jail, we were treated like prisoners, and we got to experience how it feels to get locked up. My name was Edith, and I was charged for stalking J. The Sergeant was really funny, and she kept asking us questions. When we got locked up, it was in a pretty big cell, but we were with other people. The benches we sat on were covered with graffiti from the real prisoners once kept there. After we got locked up, we learned more about the prison and got mug shots.

The last thing we did was take the tram around Melbourne. I wish I could tell you about it, but I was so tired that I fell asleep J.

            Unfortunately, yesterday was our only day in Melbourne. Today we drove from Melbourne to Philips Island. When we got there, it was pretty late, but we had time to go to see the penguins. Every night, lots of little penguins swim in, slide to shore on their stomachs, stand up, and then make the long waddle up the rocks to their nests. The walk to their nests can be up to 2 kilometers! We learned that they stick together in big groups called rafts. Rafts can contain up to 1000 penguins! When the penguins come in, they make a sound kind of like a ducks quacking sound. We first watched some come in, and then we went to a boardwalk, where we can see them waddling by up close. They are really cute!         

            Some facts about the penguins:

·         They are called Little Penguins, Fairy Penguins, Blue Penguins, and Little Blue Penguins

·         There are 17 different types of penguins, but these are the smallest

·         They are actually blue and white, not black and white like other penguins

·         They lay their eggs in September and October

·         They take 1 month to hatch

·         The mom and dad take turns – one keeps the eggs warm and doesn’t eat for up to 8 days, while the other one goes out to sea to feed, and then they switch

·         They do the same when the chicks have hatched, but the one out to sea has to bring home food for the chicks

·         After 4 months, the chicks can go in the water

·         The penguins weight just over 2 pounds

·         They are about 14 inches high

·         When it comes time to molt, they don’t go in the water so they don’t eat, so before they go into molting, they eat so much that they double their weight

·         They can stay out to sea for up to a month

·         They get up and go out to sea 2 hours before sunrise, and come back at sunset

·         They sleep out at sea and come back to their nests to socialize

The next morning, we went to a koala sanctuary. At the sanctuary, we walked through a boardwalk through the trees. There were a lot of sleeping koalas high up in the trees, but there was one eating pretty close to us. It was a little weird, because it was just sitting there and eating, when it all of a sudden noticed the people and crawled up higher in the tree. We saw a really old koala, a baby and mother koala, and a kookaburra eat a mouse. When we went back to the boardwalk the second time, the mother and the baby were hugging each other. It was so cute!

The other thing we did was a path on the ground, where we didn’t see any koalas, but we saw lots of galahs (pink and grey parrots) a few rainbow lorikeets, and a wild wallaby, which let us get pretty close. In the carpark there were a few Australian magpies, and when we fed them, they would run off with it, stash it somewhere, and then come back for more.

Galah Parrot



Friendly and curious wild wallaby



Cheeky Magpie

We also went to the Nobbies, which was a place where you could see an island full of seals. After we looked at the island, we walked along a boardwalk, where we saw a few molting penguins huddling under the boardwalk. After the Nobbies, we went back to the koala sanctuary a second time.

The next morning we got up and went to the Philips Island Fisherman’s Co–Op to see some pelicans being fed. Unfortunately, the pelicans didn’t come. We wandered down by the water, where we saw the largest sting rays we had ever seen. We also saw two wild dolphins. For lunch we had really good fish and chips.  After lunch,, we finally got to see a pelican on the beach!  It was very large and Mom thought it looked to be about the size of Jackson.  After we saw the sting rays again, we left.

Giant Sting Ray!

Wild Dolphins

Very large pelican!

When we got back in the car, we decided to take a drive along the coast. While we were driving, we saw another zoo, and we went to it. At the zoo, we saw more wombats, and one of them came right up to see us. They also had peacocks and peahens walking around, and we saw a peachick with a teeny tiny crest just beginning to grow on his head. We fed some more kangaroos, but these ones were much bigger, all brown and not as gentle. We also fed some little wallabies, and they were really gentle and shy. The koalas were a little more active, but not much. My dad fed some emus, and they were the complete opposite of gentle! The other animals we fed were reindeer, who were pretty gentle. My favorite bird was a sulfur – crested cockatoo who really liked to talk. In the nocturnal exhibit, our favorites were the possums. They were very curious, and kept leaping up on the bars. We thought that the zoo had giant worms, but they told us that a law had recently been made against keeping giant worms in captivity, because they are endangered and don’t live as long in captivity. They did have one preserved in a jar, and you could tell it really was a giant worm.  

Before our drive back to Melbourne the next day, we stopped at a few places. First, we went fishing. Dad and Jackson fished on the lake, while mom and I read. Dad and Jack each caught one rainbow trout.  The place was also a restaurant, so they cooked the fish for us.  They were really good! After fishing, we went to the Fisherman’s Co – Op again, to feed our leftover bread to the seagulls. After that, we drove back to Melbourne,