Saturday, September 29, 2007

A Day with the Wildlife

Because I didn't get to write a post this morning, I've written two. This one and another one below with our trip to the Blue Mountains yesterday. I also added some pictures to my older posts as I finally figured out how to add more than one picture to each entry.

Spent a large part of today at the Sydney Wildlife Park. This was a great little park that focuses strictly on animals found in Australia. The boys really seemed to enjoy seeing all of the animals. We saw all the snakes and lizards which prompted lots of me shouting out "Crikey!" (Think Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin), or "There's a real Ripper!". We were able to get pretty closeup to some Koalas, Kangaroos and Wallaby's too. We also saw what is considered to be the world's most dangerous bird, the cassowary. It looked like "Buckbeak" from the Harry Potter movie. It was actually a really neat looking bird. About the size of an emu (with similar feathers) with a beautiful blue color on its head and this large horn type of thing on its head.


At the park there was an Aboriginal man playing the digeridoo, so had to see that again, of course. His name was Leon. Sounds native, doesn't it? The boys had their picture taken with him. He would play people's names through the digeridoo when he played. He played Susie. He played Carmen. He played John. I wanted to tell him my name was Christopher James Aloysius McGuillicutty, Constantius Hoban III and see what he would do.

Judy really wanted the boys to have a close encounter with a Koala. You could get pretty close to them but weren't allowed to get close enough to touch them. The park offered the opportunity to stand in front of one and have your picture taken for $20. For Zach and Andrew, that would be $40 just to stand in front of a koala and take a picture. They couldn't hold them or even touch them. I said it wasn't worth it, and Judy was a little upset with me for being cheap. I told her that I could accomplish the same thing by having the boys pose as if they were near a Koala and then I would Photoshop the koala into the picture. I posted my picture below... why would you pay $20 for a picture when you can get these kinds of real-life results by doing it yourself?


We're off to a new city tomorrow. Going to a town called UllaDulla for a couple of days and then down to Melbourne.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Guys, Great commentary and pictures. I'm really enjoying your trip and feel like I'm there (not!) I can see your point about the pictures with the Koala - obviously the same result. Thanks for keeping us in touch. Love, Mom

Anonymous said...

OK, I tried to post a comment a minute ago that was brilliant and now it's lost in cyberspace - at least I don't see it here.

I'm loving reading about your trip! You look like you're having a great time. I do not agree with your solution to the Koala picture, Chris - c'mon, support the local economy! :-) Just wait, Judy will get her revenge when she does the scrapbook!
Miss you all, Jenn, Aaron and Ian