Photos from 2002 September 26
Today I took a day trip to the Billabong Wildlife Sanctuary. This was a really cool zoo, almost as good as the Belize zoo. Unfortunately, my camera battery decided to die about an hour into the trip, so I missed out on some of the coolest pictures. The bats, the four-meter long crocodiles, and all the turtles (not to mention the giant pelicans) you will have to imagine. Pictured here is an emu they had wandering around the place, with no barrier between us and it. That was the first big surprise. Theres this >emu<, just walking casually along the path past us. Quite a startling sight.	The first thing I went to was the wombat display. Wombats have got to be some of the cutest, most patient creatures around. They move just like you'd think they would; kind of with a lumbering/wobbling gait.	Here's one of the rangers, telling us about the life of a wombat. They burrow up to three meters underground, and I think he said the tunnels can extend for 12 meters or so. They have a very tough rump that they can present to predators that chase them into their caves, and have been known to suffocate dingos by squeezing them between rump and tunnel wall.	Here's me, holding a wombat. He was a little squirmy, and very heavy, but it was so cool to hold him, I was thrilled. His fur was very thick, long, and heavy. Not very cuddly, actually. Still, it was quite the experience.
Yup. Here he is. A koala. Note the orange eyes with vertical slit pupils like cats. You can't really see it here, but one of the freakiest things about koalas is that they have three fingers and two thumbs on each hand. More on these guys later.	All the time the ranger was telling us how koalas sleep 20 hours a day, and their waking activity consists of eating a few leaves, looking around and going back to sleep, these guys were racing back and forth around the pen, chasing the rangers and begging to be picked up. If they weren't picked up immediately, they tended to try to climb the rangers.	Here they are, two young males, too young to get territorial. They were very playful.	Here's two photos of me holding a koala. Its fur was very soft and thick, very comfy. Note the two thumbs on his right hand. The claws were rather sharp. Not enough to puncture, but definitely uncomfortable.
I couldn't decide which of these shots I liked better, so I kept em both.	Here's that wandering emu again. I thought it was interesting, how its legs folded beneath it.	This roo's not dead, shes only sleeping. But it was a chance to get close enough to look at her paws. Actually, there were two roos running around like the emu, although I first saw them at what was clearly their nap time. Later on, they were up and about, and I got to hand feed them some seeds and munchy things. Just like feeding goats at a petting zoo. Only roos are... well, they're roos. They're just plain different.	Here you can see the whole roo. I thought it was neat how they sleep. This one kicked its rear legs in its sleep, too. I wonder of what roos dream?
Now, this is a Cassowary! Very endangered. I also learned that cassowaries eat fruits from about 150 different trees, some of which are *only* eaten by the cassowary. This is how the trees spread their seed around. If the cassowaries go, so do a bunch of fruit trees. Cassowaries are very shy birds, but can get aggressive when they feel threatened. If you look closely at this ones feet, you can see that the inner >toe< is actually a long, very sharp, spine. They can do some serious damage if they kick you with that.	I didn't actually hold a croc myself, but I did touch some snakes, and watched some kids feed raw fish to some turtles and eels while these huge pelicans tried to steal the fish away (one almost swallowed a turtle, trying to get to the fish). Unfortunately, this is exactly when my camera battery decided to die. So, no more pictures today. Alas. Fortunately, there are at least two more wildlife sanctuaries on my list of things to do next week, so I may get some more croc pictures yet!	I met some folks from Germany who were travelling through. I never did catch the names of the couple on the left, but the guy on the right is named Sebastian. He's from Erfurt, they're from Dresden. They were just camping in Papua New Guinea, and had some fascinating stories to tell.
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