Orientation Day 3 Part 1

Friday, July 16, 2010Today we woke up crazy early to go to the zoo and the blue mountains--- and it was totally worth it. We got on a bus and Matt put on a funny video about Kangaroos. Heres some fun facts...

• The adult male Kangaroo is called buck, boomer or jack.
• Adult females are called doe, flyer or jill.
• Young kangaroos are called joeys
• A group of kangaroos is called a mob
• Kangaroos are the only large animals that move by hopping.
• They cannot move backwards.
• on land kangaroos can't move their hind legs independently, only together. But when they are swimming (they are good swimmers) they kick each leg independently.
• The mating times of each female jill differs- therefore its up to the alpha male to remember when each female is ready to mate again
• If a female doesnt feel like mating she can fertilize one of her own eggs
• The different female teats can give different types of milk- one teat can provide milk for a developing embryo in her pouch while another teat feeds the young joey that bounces around her finding refuge in her pouch.
• A female kangaroo can have three babies at the same time: an older joey living outside the pouch but still drinking milk, a young one in the pouch attached to a teat, and an embryo awaiting birth.

We arrived at the zoo and right away I made friends with a bird who enjoyed the petting through the bars of the cage.

And then I turned around to see where everyone had gone too (I had been petting this guy for a while now he began to talk to me) and there were kangaroos that were just jumping around freely.. no cage!!



There were emus walking around too!






The Koala Bears had their own place except for one section where you could pose with them : )










So cute! The zoo was soo big that you needed longer than we were really given but ill go through some of the animals I was able to meet.

Here is a Black Swan- very different to the white swans we have in the states.


Not sure exactly about this one-- im guessing some sort of pelican?

This was real cute- one of the guys in study abroad had this bird just land in his hand- how fantastic is that!

Kanga and Owls.
This is a wombat they are completely adorable- just like everything else in this zoo. To me, a wombat is kind of like a fuzzy version of a pig :)

These are australian penguins. If youve ever seen happy feet then I imagine they crafted their character from this penguin. (That statement was in no way saying I liked the movie happy feet, very much the contrary) None the less adorable penguin.


Ok- i cant get enough of the roo!!
The left image is of an albino kangaroo. kinda weird really.
The middle picture is rat kangaroo.
The right image is a either a wallaby or a walleroo- a type of kangaroo and yet it has a different name (?) I honestly dont know the difference between a walleroo, wallaby, and kangaroo. Something I must find out in the future.

I fail- i dont know what he is called. I do know that he is not poisonous (asked this first) and then proceeded to pet him.

This animal is poisonous and therefore behind glass! thankgod

We really only had no more than 2 hours at this zoo at my camera was low of battery and space. We got on the bus and headed an hour towards the blue mountains. Matt put on another video about a prehistoric tree that had been found in the blue mountains.

Apparently the blue mountains are so vast that there is much, and i mean heaps, that they havent even set foot into. One day they came across the Wollemi pine, a tree which dates back to the dinosaurs age. There were less than 100 of the trees in one of the canyons of the blue mountains. The location of these trees are secret and accessed by helicopter. Individuals who are take to see the trees are blindfolded on the trip. Essentially the find of the Wollemi pine is like finding a living dinosaur- very miraculous.



The blue mountains have been given their name due to the blue haze that hovered above the mountains produced by the oil from the plentiful Eucalyptus trees.





The hike into the blue mountains was over 400 stairs that were sometimes metal others stone. At times the size of the stairs were just enough for my foot to land- no bigger. We only traveled down the mountain (thankgod). The mountain itself is more actually a canyon, greater and older than the grand canyon in america. They tell you here that when the grand canyon was just a little river, before it was a canyon, the blue mountains were already carved completely.





To get out of the canyon we road the steepest train in the world- it was about a 60 degree incline and a little nerve wracking at times. The ride was very much welcomed- due to the workout that we had coming down the mountain. We then got on the bus and I unsuccessfully tried to get some shut eye while Matt put on a strange aussie show "We Can Be Heros". I thought the show was pretty lame but some people here think its great.

The day doesnt end there.... Part II.....