Last week, a few girls from the enviro club who are in my Wildlife Ecology class decided to take me to see Healesville Sanctuary, which only keeps native Australian wildlife. One of the girls lives about 45 mins out of Melbourne, out by the Yarra Valley. We spent the night at her house and the next morning we went off to Healesville. She has a beautiful 10 acre property, looking out onto rolling hills as far as the eye can see. It's all farmland out there and everyone either raises animals or grows crops, or both. Her family grows some fruit and owns two sheep and some chickens. She actually goes out in the morning and collects their eggs. Everything they eat is so fresh and natural. Such a different lifestyle than what I'm used to! Her family was very welcoming and it was a pleasure staying at her house. That night we stayed up until 1:30am chatting and giggling, it was so nice to be in that kind of home environment again. The next morning the girls made it a point to serve me a typical aussie brekky of Weetbix, which are just big chunks of plain wheat cereal. I had it with milk, banana, and honey- 'twas yum. Before making it to Healesville we stopped at a bakery and picked up a "vanilla slice"- a trademark of australian pastries, also appetizingly known as a "snot block" (I kid you not). Basically a custard Napoleon (Mille-feuille). We made it to Healesville by 10:30 and stayed until 4. It was so nice to be able to take our time- we're all conservation students so we were in absolutely NO rush. We saw a great birds of prey show and booked a "private encounter" with the rare and endangered Tree Kangaroo named Tapini.
Quolls
Lyrebird - an incredible creature, have a look at this video: Lyrebird, BBC- David Atteneborough
The lyrebird can imitate any sound, natural or man-made
Tapini the Tree Kangaroo
Flying Foxes/ Fruit Bats (my babies)
Feeding a Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo
We stopped in the Yarra Valley chocolaterie on our way back and I picked up some chocolate goodies for family and friends. It was a much needed 24 hours filled with genuine bonding. The girls are all going to be in Canada for their fall semesters and some are going to be passing through NY, so we've been trying to plan out where and when to meet up, we'll definitely be keeping in touch.
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