Australian Celebrities

Ok...so maybe celebrities wasn't the right word to use.  A few weeks back, a radio news reporter from the ABC news came to the farm to do an interview with us.  He had found our blog on the internet and gotten in contact with Heather.  Below is a link to the website with our interview.  It is fairly lengthy about eight and a half minutes long, so have a seat and enjoy!!

http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2009/07/01/2613383.htm?site=riverland

Cape Tribulation

From Cairns we took a two day trip to a place called Cape Tribulation.  On our way there, we stopped at a park in Port Douglas to see some animals and to here a keeper talk.  There wasn't really any new animals to report on so I only included one picture which you will see later on.  I am not sure how many have seen the movie 'Fools Gold' but part of that was filmed here and also in a town called 'Bowen' where we also drove through.  Afterwards, we headed down to the rainforest. It was fairly interesting actually.  There was a river running through the forest but we never actually stopped for a swim.  It is considered to be safe swimming.  

Here are some from the rainforest.

After the rainforest, we headed out for a 'Daintree River Cruise'.  

We were crocodile spotting!  We saw four of them.  These guys are

all in their natural habitat.  There was a little one that I didn't include a 

picture of because I would actually have to point him out.  He was only 

2-3 weeks old so he was pretty tiny.  Here are a few from that. 

We found an interesting sign along the route.  It is pretty popular here

and is actually on tourist items such as t-shirts.  The picture of the thing

below is actually a Cassowary.  They are an endangered species and are actually a very 

dangerous and vicious animal.  They are about the size of an emu and for the most 

part look like one as well.  They roam the rainforest and eat the seeds of various plants.  

The seeds need to go through their digestive system in order to germinate.  So, it is essential

for these Cassowaries to survive otherwise the rainforest will deteriorate.  The roads

in the rainforest are lined with speed-bumps.  They are not your typical speed-bumps 

though, it is actually like rocks cemented in.  So on the sign below, someone drew on it to create the funny caption!!  

Here are a few pictures from the beach just outside our Hostel.

We actually got to go ocean Kayaking with the sea turtles.  This time of 

year they come to the reef to breed, so needless to say,  there 

are a few of them around!! I never got a picture of them because

they came up and down so fast and I didn't have time to put the 

paddle down and grab the camera!!

Cairns

The first stop on our vacation was Cairns in Queensland which is on the Northern end of the South Coastline. This picture is of the Lagoon looking out over the ocean.  At the tourist places they have lagoons for safe swimming.  This way there are no boats, and no other dangerous water animals such as Sharks, Crocodiles,  Jelly Fish and Sting Ray.  

While in Cairns we went snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef.

It was so amazing.  It took quite a while to get used to the whole breathing 

underwater but once I could actually do it with panicking, it was beautiful!!

Here are just a few pictures that we took.  We have over 200 just from 

underwater so I had to choose just a few.  Enjoy!! 

This is in fact Dylan in case you were wondering!!

Holidays

As of 12:00 today, Dylan and I are on holidays for three weeks.  We caught a bus from Lameroo to Adelaide and are staying in a Hostel over night.  In the morning we are catching a flight to Sydney and then off to Cairns.  We are booked onto a bus called OzExperience.  It is meant for backpacking tourists.  We get on the bus in Cairns and drive down to Sydney being able to get off and on in whatever town we want whenever we want.  This gives us the flexibility to decide what we want to do.  We are very excited and are hoping that everything goes well!

3 in 1....

Last weekend Dylan and I joined some other trainees for a fun filled day of sightseeing.  We did alot of driving but it was worth it.  We have been spending more time with the other trainees and starting to gain pretty good friendships.  They are a good group of people and we are enjoying our time with them.

Monarto Zoological Park

This was our first stop.  Monarto Zoo is a 1,500 hectare open-range sanctuary  undertaking a major role nationally and internationally in breeding programs for rare and endangered species.  You pay as you drive in and head up to the main building.  There you can book a tour, either a Grasslands Tour or an Africa Tour which is included as the entry fee.  There is a guide on the bus  that tells you about the animals and a little bit more about the park.  They also have a separate bus called the 'Zu-loop Bus'.  It takes you around to the different enclosures where you can walk out on a viewing platform. It is a very interesting place.  Here are some pictures of our experience.  We could not include all of the animals that we saw but these ones were particularly interesting.  If you would like to find out more information about these animals, here is a link to the Monarto website.

Addax 

Scimitar-Horned Oryx

Giraffe

Baby Giraffe

Eland

Black Rhino

White Rhino

Cheetah

Cheetah

African Painted Dogs

African Painted Dogs

Lions

Lion

Lion

Zebra

This was one of the many miscellaneous pens. 

Whispering Wall

This was our next stop.  The Whispering Wall is basically just a dam.  It measures 36 meters high and approximately 500 meters across.  If someone is standing on one side and another on the other, you can whisper to each other and you can actually hear them.  It is pretty crazy.  You would think that there would be speakers hidden somewhere.  We found it very interesting.

Looking from one side not quite reaching the other.

Just a pretty picture!

That far down.

Dylan doing the whispering 

copying the guy below!

Melba's Chocolate Factory

This was our last stop.  We thought that is was going to be more of a demonstration but was actually more of just a big confectionary shop.  They did have a few samples which was pretty sweet!!  Te he, I just had to!!  We could see the machines but they were not really in use at the time.  We basically just wandered around tasting the samples!  Here are a few pictures from inside.

Dundee Wildlife

On June 14 we went to a place called Dundee Wildlife located just outside of Murray Bridge.  It is a small wildlife park where you can be interactive with the animals.  There were many different varieties as shown below.  There were many  more animals that are not shown below such as crocodiles, snakes, a barking owl, kangaroos, more varieties of birds and hopping mice. We really enjoyed it and since it was raining we had the place to ourselves!

Kookaburra

This is some variety of Parrot.  He kept saying 'Hello' to us.

This is a very rare white Kangaroo.  There are not many

of them left in Australia.  This was the only one that we saw.

This is a Rock Wallaby with its joey. 

They are pretty much the same as a Kangaroo but only smaller. 

This was the craziest Chook I have ever seen.

A very cute sleeping Koala

They have a very active bird sanctuary.  The birds obviously thought that

we came bearing gifts of seed!  This one would fly up to you and 

bite your fingers looking for the food. 

An Emu.

A Water Buffalo

One of the many loose Roosters!