Shelly's Adventures around the World: Healesville Sanctuary

:: Healesville Sanctuary ::
:: Healesville ::

:: Victoria ::

:: Australia ::

:: 14/09/08 :: Sunday 14th September 2008 ::

:: Sunny - approx 20 C - Very chilly wind ::

** Today i woke up earlier than normal to go to Healesville Sanctuary to see all the animals native to Australia. I went with Rachel and Brett (Rachel's boyfriend).I had no idea what to expect.. were the animals going to be caged up like in a zoo, or free in a big forest and you have to find and identify the animal yourself. I soon noticed it was in between and began my adventure around the "Park". **

** First enclosure was the Emus - but no emus to be found in their pen. A sign notified i will see an emu later on the trail. I thought this was no a good start but remained optimistic. As we made our way over to the Koalas i told Rach & Brett the Koalas have green tongues story.

Excitement struck as my eyes latched onto the pair of Koalas hiding up in the trees in their enclosure. [Photo! Was my first thought] and then the ("They smell of pee" - Natalie Webster once told me) was my after thought. But I thought, They're cute and their fur looks a bit like a sheepskin rug :) **

** Bypassing all the boring information bits we found ourselves KANGAROOS. With the Roos enclosure we were allowed to walk into it and take up close photos. There were ropes so you didn't get too close, but some Roos want to be famous and think you may be headhunting.

In the Platypus hut, to our dismay, we were not allowed to take photos with flashes on and the little things were just too quick darting through the water i would have never got a good pic, but they're way cute! Finally i got to see my Emu's, rather ugly birds but i learnt an interesting fact {Emu's cant walk backwards - Neither can Kangaroo's, and they're both on Australia's coat of arms} [Just a thought :: Maybe this is meant to symbolize NO GOING BACK :P] **

** Reaching the lesser known animals mid course in our trail we came across a Gonna. And that's exactly what you would be if you had one hurtling towards you! They're massive beast's!! **

** We spotted the cutest little rock wallaby, up on a rock, posing for a guy with a digital SLR with some huge lens to get right up in that rock wallaby's face. [Poor little thing looked a bit sad me thoughts].

Onto the pelicans. I never realised how massive those birds are! They're almost as short a me! Weird birds!

Look like a coloured in colouring book drawing! (Like a clown) It was almost feeding time for the Pellies and i thought [Hope they don't attack me] as they do because they can be rather vicious birds! **

** Next was the Wombats enclosure and the three of us searched and searched but saw no Wombat in sight, BUT we did fine ourselves 3 Echidna's. I took a close look at our Echidna friends Eddy and i noticed {Fact : his two back feet were BACKWARDS! And not to mention he had spikes all over!} Now Eddy was different to our other two Echidna's!He was taller, and lighter coloured, I liked Eddy the special Echidna!

Another let down was the Tasmanian Devil was being exactly that and hid so well no one could find her! We stayed for about 10 mins of the "meet the keeper" or the Tasmanians because we thought she would bring one out or at least we would see one. But no! the keeper just talked about how they are now Endangered due to a form of cancer they are getting. We left in search of dingos :) **

** On our path to the Dingoes we found our selves the reptiles house. We ventured in to see what we could find, Brown snake, Iguana, Death adders. Yeah that was a fun place! I shockingly found that all of the snakes in that house can be located in Queensland which a you can guess, i was overjoyed. hmmm.

We quickly nipped over to the Parrots in Flight show which ended as soon as we arrived, but what we managed to see looked good. **

** We still had 10Min's to kill before the "meet the keeper" show was on for the reptiles so we made a mad dash to the Dingo's pen. Dingo's are such cute dogs!

The older ones were being taken on their walk - around the park.

We made it back to the reptiles hut for the talk bout snake bite but were bit later than others who were tall and had kiddywinks (on their shoulders).

We were there for long enough to see the keeper get peed on by the iguana (this was the very beginning) and to find out some useful facts {Only 2 people a year die from a snake bite} and how to react etc, helpful things i hopefully wont have to put into practice! And the fact that {Bee/Wasp sting is the biggest killer}. **

** At 2:30pm we attended the Birds of Prey show. This was amazing. A bunch of Chinese tourists sat next to me and their translator was really friendly and started chatting to me. And was like where you from? You sound English ... Detected i shamefully said "I am" HAHA.

The first bird came SWOOPING out to the sound of the Didgeridoo and the bird man made the bird fly right over my head!! [I thought please don't listen to the call of nature if you get one birdy] These birds were BIG! Wish i ha taken photos but my battery decided to die when i reached the pelicans all the way back there!

Th last bird they set loose to fly around for us was still flying round when the show was over. They said she hardly comes back because shes looking for a mate. And theyve left her out all night before.

The show was over and we decided to leave and pop into the Gift store **

** We got side tracked. Found the cage with the Fruit bats in and walked through. These bats were NOT small! But they were all hanging upside down from the top of the cage sleeping (Well trying to). **

** In the sanctuary shop Rach and I were like 5 year olds messing with the Teddy's and having fun. Rach bought me a Possum toy for $3.00 Its so cute! I picked it! It was the cutest face, and i didn't realise when i picked it but it was the most stuffed making it fatter too. he he.

I got home and called my Possum Andy. **