Travels of Taaning: January 2013

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Life as a wildlife volunteer

One day at work, we helped Nature (one of the keepers) feeding the snakes.

This is a Brown Snake!

Armed with nothing but a plastic lid for a bin, we got the snakes into the bins, where they can eat their food - rats!

It was pretty cool to be so close, and the snakes didn't even waste a look for us, after they got their rats.

WARNING!!
Pictures of the snakes eating rats are coming....

yum yum.... rats!

Nom nom nom!!

Cody is sleeeeping!

My job is 90% shit and 10% awesomeness...
litterally shit.... I clean koala poop, kangaroo poop, bird poop, possum poop... and other sorts of poop on occasions!

He's so sooooft!

But I get paid in awesome moments, so it doesn't always feel that bad!

Harry is trying to figure out if you have some
macropod pellets for him!

Black Swan!

One day I got to see some kangaroo joeys, another I could feed one a bit older, and I got peed on by a possum as well!

The keepers are really nice, and my fellow volunteers as well.

Jack the pelican!

We get breakfast and lunch at work, and it's awesome!

I think this is Jako, but I don't remember...

I don't have much to say, so I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves!

Who do you call an owl? We are frogmouths!

This is the Emu Rihanna - Martin's girlfriend!

The only kangaroo in the park
(the others are wallabies)

He's so cute!

See the weird thing in her stomach? It's a joey!

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Port Douglas

We were picked up from the hostel and transferred to Port Douglas.

The Wild Life habitat seems amazing and the animals are cute!

I am allowed to bring my camera to work, so hopefully I'll get some more pictures!

After the info meeting, we were tranferred to our hostel, where we're going to live the next 4 weeks.

It is nothing compared to the luxery I am used to, but we do have a pool and free WIFI!

I have started to feel just a liiiiiiittle homesick sometimes, but I still have the best parts left of my journey!

Enjoy the pictures!

Bye Sydney - Hello Cairns!

After the last shift in Luna Park, we went to say our goodbyes, eat an ice cream (which is amazing!) and take our final pictures!

We met my old friend Captain Sparrow, as you can see!

And this is my uniform

This is where I worked most of the time: Dodgem City!

Joywheel

My favourite place inside Coney Island: The Joy wheel!
You spin the wheel and make people do weird stuff until they slide off!

Diane and Martin

Here you see the slides, and some of our friends!

Michael and Martin

The backdoor to Dodgems!

And then we were suddenly in the airport!
We actually walked outisde to get into the plane! o.O

The 4 hour trip was over quickly, and we arrived in Cairns -the city we had been told should be extremely hot!

Martin's plane table

It was hot... And humid like in the shower!
But most of all it was raining!
Heavy rain for 10 minutes, then 10 minutes sunshine, then the rain started again!

My plane table!
Perfect: coffee, water, book... and Tim Tam!!

We stayed at Nothern Greenhouse, which was really nice! We had a pool and the kitchen was clean!

And then of course... they showed Batman!

The pool! And our door as well! The middle door to the right.

We went to explore Cairns, and it seems like a very small town, because the bouildings are very flat and the traffic isn't that busy.

Suddenly a strange noise filled the air and went straight to my bones. I looked up and found trees and trees filled with flying foxes! Remember? The giant bats!
It was terrifying standing underneath those trees, especially because it was in the middle of the day! Shouldn't they be sleeping?

Anyway that's it for Cairns!