We had a nice hour long drive to get to our destination for the day: Werribee Open Range Zoo. There was a pitstop on the way there to get some lunch--such a tasty Big Mac. Luckily, the weather was perfect for the day, not a cloud in the sky and probably in the mid 70s in the sun. Once we got to the zoo, we payed our admissions, only 22 dollars, and were automatically signed up to go on a 2:35 safari ride. With 20 minutes to spare, we decided to go walk through the open range bit, where they have Australian animals like kangaroos and emus wandering about the large enclosure. On our short walk we quickly discovered that all of the animals were far off the path, hiding under the trees for some reprieve from the sun. Fortunately, I was taught that if it's not roped off, I can climb it (or in this case trek across is), so we went to pester some lazy kangarros. We also discovered Elisa's fear of emus, which were admittedly rather intimidating looking and seemed to hover in small groups around the kangaroos. We found a bunch of lounging kangaroos (surrounded by emus), but before we had time to chase them out so I could see them hop about, we realized we needed to catch our sarafri bus so we headed back to the center of the zoo.
By some miracle, Elisa, Michael, and I got an entire bench of the otherwise packed bus; every other row had 5 occupants, with children under 10 seeming to be the majority. The safari took us across the world!, as the drive would exclaim every time we went into a new encloser. "And now we've crossed into North America!" meanwhile I'm exclaiming the speediness of our travel--that was nothing like my 14 hour flight across the Pacific! Anyways, we got to see a lot of cool, lazy animals in the first few zones like buffalo, some gazel-like things, camels, hippos, and so on. Elisa and I took turns passing my camera off depending on which side of the bus was closest to the animals. The African Safari (also only a hop skip and dive away from Australia apparently) was the coolest place. There was a small herd of giraffes, rhinos, zebras, and more deer like things, all up right next to the bus at most times since the hay truck had just come through, causing them all to gather nicely for a group photo. Further up the road was a herd of zebra with a foal only two weeks old. It was soo cute.
The safari took about 45 minutes and was really nice, overall. Though, at one point the ~3 year old girl behind me kept signing lyrics from "In the Ayer," which kind of made me wonder what kids are learning these days. After the safari we had a brief drink break, which included playing with the cute meercats whose exhibit lined the cafe. We decided to walk around the rest of the zoo before returning to pester more kangaroos. There were lazy lions, wild dogs that were eating lunch, cheetas that kept pacing inches away, separated only by s thin piece of glass, and hippos getting their teeth checked. Once we finished the loop it was back to open range section.
I was disapointed to find that herd of lazy kangaroos we'd found earlier were no where to be seen. Michael and I tried to see how close we could dare get to some emus, much to Elisa's discomfort. I kept saying that I was going to get a great picture, of Michael chasing the kangarros, hopping after the emus, who were chasing Elisa. Would have been great. On our way out, we happened across two kangaroos right near the path. I stood there, poised to take a picture of them hopping about, but instead they either collapsed into the grass for a nap or sheepishly dragged their feet around on the group to only mimic the motion of hopping. Determined to get a picture of them hopping around, we tried to wait until all the other guests weren't around so Michael could scare them and make them hop. The whole time new families pushing strollers and running after children kept on passing, the two kangaroos continued to do absolutely nothing. After about 10 minutes my camera battery suddenly died. Luckily, I had the backup in my purse. I was in the middle of changing it when for no particular reason, both kangaroos get up and hop dramatically off. Of course, all in the 10 seconds that it took for me to change the battery. Damn kangaroos.
After having spent a couple hours out in the sun at the zoo, we left and drove the hour back to Elisa's house. We went into town to rent movies and get pizza for the evening. We rented Easy A, at Nancy's request, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, for her brother and his friends, and Going the Distance, because it was the first thing Elisa grabbed after a long period of indecision. Getting pizza took longer than it should have, so I spent about 10 minutes sitting in the car while Elisa and Michael waited inside. Most of the time was spent being entertained by a lone fly trapped in the car with me. Otherwise, I'd started flipping through Elisa's roadmap of Victoria, looking for funny named towns--and let me tell you, there were a lot. I decided next time Elisa and I need an idea on where to go, we're going to go to the funniest named town I can find. Finally, we retired to Elisa's house for the evening. We ended up watching all three movies, leaving us getting ready for bed around 1am or so. While "helping" Michael and Elisa get mattresses out of her guest house, I was quickly distracted by the stars. I hadn't been outside on a clear night in the country yet, but woah, the stars here are beautiful. There seemed to be hundreds more than I'd ever seen before, and even brighter than that. I just stood outside for 5 minutes, spinning in circles trying to look at all of them.
The day we slept in, and didn't start thinking about what to do until after 11 or so. Her Mom suggested the Gibson market that is put on on the first Sunday of each month. It was only a 15 minute or so drive to Gibson. It was a nice sized town, another beautiful sunny day, and the market was very cute. There were loads of tents lining the center of town with people selling food, flowers, arts and crafts, word work, jewelry, books etc. We walked around for a long time, looking through all of the stands. After we'd finished with the market we found a little cafe and sat out on the street for lunch. I got the chicken parm, or parmagana, special for lunch. It ended up being huge, and delicious, and oddly enough they serve chicken parm ontop of french fries. Such a good choice. After spending a couple hours in Gibson we headed back to Woodend to run a few errands. After we'd dropped off the groceries at Elisa's, we decided to go find a waterfall we'd heard about that was nearbye.
We drove up and over Mt. Macedon again, over a crazy windy dirt road that wove through a forest of black trees, mostly burnt by a wildfire long ago. Wildfires here are rather common, large ones happen every 3 years or so in some places, and everyone is extremely fire-safe. There are signs along the road indicting the fire risk level of the day, and at gas stations you're not allowed to even operate a cell phone, in case there's a spark I guess. On the other side of the mountain, we found the Stanley park, a little park that appeared to be a little clearing of grass, a gazebo, and a playgroup with a few families there. As soon as you dipped into the little trail in the woods along the field there was a little stream, and then suddenly a waterfall. It wasn't nearly as large as Trentham Falls, but it was still impressive. We walked down the nicely crafted stone steps to the base of the waterfall. I had loads of fun climbing around on the rocks and taking pictures.
After getting my fill on the falls, we followed the trail that wound alongside the steam, through the trees. Along the path I suddenly found an echida, crawling around and looking for bugs. It was so cute, and so close, so naturally I went climbing around to get as close as possible. It was surprising quite unafraid, and went about its business, continuing to walk straight at me until it was only a few feet away. Only on a few occasions, when I broke a branch or something, did it flatten out and raise up all of the pricklies on its back. I named him Eddie and had a blast taking his picture, until I finally left, only because Elisa was getting attacked by mosquitoes while I played. It was alright though, because further up the path there were some blackberry bushes, so Elisa enjoyed picking and eating some berries. We decided that in our traveling partnership, I was the hunter and she was the gatherer--though I only hunt cute animals to take pictures of. There were also some fun trees I found that were fun to play with; one was hallowed and burnt out, and the other was massive, burnt around the base, and looked like it had a face on it. So cool. I rode the child-size bouncy horse thing at the playground for a bit, and then we left for home.
The rest of the afternoon was nice and relaxing .We watched tv, had a tasty dinner with her family that her mom made, and then hung out upstairs for a while. I even dragged Elisa outside to stare at the starts with me for a while, even though it was rather cold out. Then we left so I could catch the last train home at 9:30. It was a lovely train ride, and I didn't even have to pay! Late at night the ticket office at the Woodend station is closed, so usually you wait for the conductor to check tickets and just buy one from him. For whatever reason, the conductor never felt like doing his rounds, so free train ride for me. Its only 6.40, but still, I was excited. I got home near 11 and relaxed at home for the rest of the night.
The last couple days have been nice. My classes are going well. Genetics is still boring. In animal behavior we're learned about genetically linked behaviors like nest building in mice and aggitated swimming in guppies, and in Australian wildlife we we've been learning about amphibians like the the invasive cane toad and a recently extinct frog that would swallow it's eggs, have them develop in their stomach, and then vomit up baby frogs. Figure's they're extinct, doesn't seem like a reasonable way to procreate. It was nice, there was no 3 hour lab today for my wild life class because there are some labs that are done in two groups, so you only have lab every other week. Next week we're going to the zoo though, that'll be fun. My history class is still dull and boring as ever. I entertained the idea of taking a different history course, but none of the interesting topics fit well with my schedule, and I had secretly hoped that the lecturer might have just been having an off day.
Like last week, the weather has been dreary and drizzly most days, so I've just been hanging out downstairs with everyone after classes. Tuesday we had two false fire alarms within an hour, walking down 7 flights of stairs was loads of fun. I also finally made it up the the 12th floor last night. I'm not sure why I'd never gone up there before, but let me tell you, I've been missing out. The view was breathtaking. My views from the 7th floor are just the tops of nearbye buildings, with the slight hint of a city beyond those walls. Up there, all you can see right out to the horizon is a sea of lights splashed across the blackness. It's beautiful. It just keeps going and going too. It was honestly the first time I realized that I am living in the middle of an amazingly large city. My version of Melbourne before that was maybe 10 square blocks, and even that was hit or miss. Being able to look out and see the whole massive expansiveness of it all really made me realize where I am. The view from the kitchen, oh my god, I'd stand up there and cook all night just to look at it. It's slightly under being absolutely perfect, there's a small roof of the neighboring building blocking some of it, but for the most part it's a beautiful view of the CBD, the stretch of the giant skyscrapers with all of their alternating office lights on. It was gorgeous.
I don't have any big plans for the rest of the week. I think there's a picnic with MUSEX in the gardens Friday afternoon. I might go to the races on Saturday, there's a big G1 race and a whole afternoon of races at the Flemington Racecourse. It's one of the oldest and most well-known track in the country and is only a 10 minute train ride from the center of the city. We'll see if I make it out of not.
No comments:
Post a Comment