A desert wiffin a desert

Yesterday I had the morning off from the hotel, so, at Alison's recommendation, I hoofed it over to the Alice Springs Desert Park. Now, as a brief side note, I have been using Bill Bryson's book In a Sunburned Country as a travel bible; everything I do or plan to do, I check to see if Mr. Bryson did it, too, and to see if he had any pithy remarks about it. This is the conversation he had with his travel companion, Allan, on their arrival in the Alice:

"And what is there to do for two days in Alice Springs?"
"Quite a lot," I said encouragingly, and pulled out a brochure I had taken from a rack in the motel. I flipped through it. "There's the Alice Springs Desert Park, for one thing."
He inclined his head a fraction. "What's that?"
"It's a nature reserve where they carefully recreated a desert environment."
"In the desert?"
"Yes."
"They've recreated a desert in the desert? Have I got that right?"
"Yes."
"And you pay money for this?"
"Yes."
He nodded contemplatively. "What else?"

All hilarity aside, though, it was fantastic park. I got there just in time for the "Birds of Prey" show (as did dozens and dozens of other people: school kids, tour groups, etc.). It was incredible! There were galahs, black kites, whistling kites, a black breasted buzzard, an owl, butcher birds and an uninvited eagle circling off in the distance. The buzzard was definitely the coolest; it's one of two birds in the world that instinctively uses tools to eat. When it finds an emu egg, it picks up a stone in its beak and hurls it as hard as it can against the egg until it cracks and it can eat the insides. Very cool.

As soon as the bird show was over, I ran over to the nocturnal house to beat the crowds. There were so many animals! I saw bilbies, malas, quolls and countless other desert rats and marsupials. And the reptiles! Tons of snakes, skinks, legless lizards, thorny devils and anything else you can imagine. I probably spent an hour in there, visiting all of the animals over and over again. They didn't have an echidna on display, which was a bummer, but apparently there's one living in the back yard, so maybe, if I bide my time, I'll get to see one in the wild.

After the nocturnal house, I wandered around and found the kangaroo and emu paddocks. I actually got to walk around with the kangaroos, but they were pretty lethargic and wouldn't come say hi. But the fact that I was allowed into their pen is probably a point for the cute and cuddly, yeah? I don't know. The emus were separated from the path by a couple of fences, but it was still neat to see them. I think I am going to try to find some in the wild when I am down in South Australia, 'cause apparently that's where they all hang out.

In hindsight, I really only went to look at the animals, and didn't spend to much time in the "environment" parts. But it was still really cool. Probably would have been nice to go there with company, but what can you do, eh?

The worst part is that as soon as i turned on my camera, the low battery light flashed, so I only ended up with a couple of pictures of the kangaroos and maybe one or two of the emus. Ah well.

Peace.

Continuing the Great Debate

During my last several months of employment, there was an ongoing debate: Are kangaroos cute and cuddly or ruthless fighting machines?





I continue to stand my ground that they should be regarded with great caution from great distances. I mean, look at the boxing gloves for goodness sake!





But there have been other positions made and evidence presented, and I try to keep an open mind. And besides, who doesn't love a good debate? So I encourage you to talk amongst yourselves (via the comments) and argue your side for the kangaroo debate and I will do some hardcore research while I'm in their natural habitat. In the mean time, I will share some of my kangaroo stories with you!



As I mentioned, I saw a kangaroo on my first day here, but it was pretty far away. However, when I got home from my first night at the Steakhouse, I came around back to the veranda, and there were two 'roos sitting right in front of me. The looked at me with this face that said very clearly "Oh crap! A human!" and then bounded off into the darkness. It was thrilling to say the least.



I see them pretty regularly hovering in the bushes on the sides of the road when I drive in the more crepuscular times of day, and they make pretty spectacular roadkill as well. Truly, they are the deer of down under.



Today, though, was kind of exciting. We were having a little birthday party barbeque for Liam at the Telegraph Station (where the town of Alice Springs was born), and there were kangaroos all over the place! So after I had gorged myself on sausages, I decided to stalk some in the bush. Here are some of the shots I got:

This guy was just chillin' under a tree. He was scoping me out, I was scoping him. I would like to take this opportunity to say I have a rockin' zoom on my camera.

There he goes, bounding away. They really do "bound". It's not just hopping because there's so much tail involvement. And they're definitely graceful.

And this little guy was lurking not too far away. There were three there that I saw, but one got away before I could get a good picture. They were all very beautiful, though. In that "bottomless reservoir of rage and violence" kind of way.

Have I mentioned that Australia rocks?