photos: the territory wildlife park

photos: go manly sea eagles!! (and photos of real sea eagles in their natural habitat in kakadu!!)

quicko: deer

The last of this small series of MIA Australian animals (which, alas, I have just realized I alluded to ages ago when I first came ... but never mind, I'm sure you can do with a reminder) -- deer.  I saw one in the zoo (!!), but am pretty sure there are none, shall we say, naturally occurring here.

quicko: racoons

As far as I know, there aren't racoons in Australian.  I certainly haven't seen one.

quicko: squirrels

Australia doesn't have squirrels.  This is why, when you witness an Australian in America, you will see them instantly drawn to squirrels, cooing and calling and making a general fuss, completely with cameras and, coincidentally, cases of candy.

Okay, maybe not, I confess I got a bit carried away with the Cs.  You get the idea.

quicko: sweetheart

Another Wikipedia post for you today, the story of the ironically named Sweetheart, a huge crocodile (thankfully dead now) I recently saw on display in Darwin:

"Sweetheart was the name given to a 5.1 metre saltwater crocodile responsible for a series of attacks on boats in Australia between 1974 and 1979. Sweetheart attacked outboard motors, dinghies, and fishing boats. In July 1979, Sweetheart was finally caught alive by a team from the Territory Parks and Wildlife Commission, but drowned while being transported when it became tangled with a log. The crocodile's mounted body is now on permanent display at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.^[1]"

quicko: christmas beetles

Less appealing than the Australian Christmas tree is the Australian Christmas beetle -- again, a creature found in abundance around the Christmas season.

photos: the races!

This afternoon Kiril and I went to the races at Randwick Racecourse.  We saw three races, though my highlight was two little girls coming up to me just to say, "you look so pretty!"  Aww, shucks.  Go ahead and make my day :)

 

photos: breakfast with the cockatoos

quicko: chocolate bilbunny!

It's a bunny!  It's a platypus!  It's a bilby!

They make chocolate bilbies (bilbys?  bilbii?) here -- evidently because rabbits are considered such pests (not to mention not Australian) that they were more appropriate choices than rabbits.  They still do bunnies, too, though.

quicko: merry-go-round

Surely you can't get much more Australian than a koala-emu-kangaroo merry-go-round!

quicko: WIRES

Refers to Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Services (WIRES) and is Australia's largest wildlife charity.

a little mishap

I've just had a little mishap.

Or potentially a small series of little mishaps punctuated by mildly relevant incidents, but I'll let you call it what you will.

What happened was I saw a cockroach.  I really hate cockroaches, so much so so that I'm really rather loathe to actually type out the word because it is gross and disgusting (And also, incidentally, a word I continually forget exists when my students are playing a spelling game that starts c-o-c- and I break in to beg them to please only use polite words and they get very confused because they can't see why "cockroach" is so rude.)

In any event, one of those atrocious insects showed itself dashing madly about my kitchen counter, then hiding (presumably panting its little lungs out) behind a clear blue vase, clearly deluded in its reverie that I could not see it there.

I could, which is why I was shouting, "go away, you miserable, decrepit little beast of atrociousness!" and trying to decide if it would be worth it to smush it with my flip flop on the kitchen counter or just let it scurry away of its own accord.

Thankfully it was just about that point that my friend Katie came into the kitchen and I quickly let her take over the realm of cockroach killery, seeing as she is Australian and tough and good at interacting with wildlife.

Katie managed somehow (it all happened rather fast) to catch the cockroach in a bowl in the sink and fill it with water, thereby beginning to drown the invader.  I breathed a sigh of relief, except for the fact there was still a half-dead cockroach in my sink.

"Shall we flush him?" I asked.

"Or throw him out the window," she said, "except you want to wait till he's dead."

"Why?" I asked, thinking the sooner we were rid of him, the better.

"Well, because he might not actually be dead and he might start to move and hit your finger," she said, looking up at me, who'd begun convulsing rather egregiously at the mention of cockroach coinciding with bare skin.

"You understand now," she said, laughing.

So we sat down to chat, and left the cockroach to take his time dying in the sink.

Incidentally (this is one of those mildly relevant incidents, in case you were wondering), Katie had very magnanimously agreed to drink out of my favorite mug, which is the one that formerly had the possibly dead lizard in it, and that I have henceforth been entirely incapable of drinking out of.  I told her the whole story and explained that she certainly did not have to drink from the mug, as goodness knows I wasn't, but that if she did, it might pave the way for me to one day be able to again use my favorite mug.  She very kindly agreed.  I told you she was tough.

Anyway, after she left, I decided it was time to dispose of the cockroach.  Throwing him out the window was highly tempting, but I remembered the neighbors beneath us aren't overly fond of us already (something about flushing toilets at night and waking them up), and I was afraid this would do rather permanent damage to our already rocky relationship.  I decided to flush him.

It was on the way to the bathroom with the full bowl of water and carcass that I remembered the light in the bathroom is out.  It has been out for a couple weeks now, because there has not been a boy around to change it, and I am perfectly happy to shower in the dark until someone avails himself to change my light bulb.  I did, however, begin to think that light could prove useful in the disposal of the insect.

Fortunately, light was not exactly required -- though it could potentially have averted the minor crisis that followed.  I had the foresight to lift both lids on the toilet, but seeing as that's not a maneuver I regularly perform, I forgot that they don't stay up particularly well.  So, what should have been a reasonably painless experience turned tragic when the lids came crashing down, spilling dirty water and dead cockroach all over the floor.  Thank goodness I didn't break the bowl.

Somehow or other I managed to get the bowl back to the kitchen and then actually (this deserves tremendous kudos, in my estimation) pick up the carcass with toilet paper and deposit it in the trash.  And then wash my hands sixteen times.

So now my hands are clean, but if you'll excuse me, I still have a tragically mired bathroom to clean.

quicko: moggy

AKA cat.  Here's mine, isn't he adorable??

got to kill a cockroach or two

I see many appeals of marriage, but tonight by far the most pressing was the need for a man to remove a dead cockroach from the kitchen sink.

The cockroach did not begin the night dead in the kitchen sink.  I, in fact, have no idea where it began the night, as we generally run in quite different circles socially.  I had been at Bible study.  I fear I cannot say the same for the cockroach.

Later in the evening I thought I was doing a very good job of minding my own business, looking up shows I wanted to see and doing laundry and -- this was the big mistake -- washing dishes.

Seeing as I don't cook, the only dishes I had were two bowls (cereal), two cups (tea) and two spoons (tea and cereal).  You'd think the amount of time it takes to wash six minor kitchen articles would be, of all the time the cockroach could avoid the kitchen sink, prime on its list.  You'd think wrong.

I was just beginning the task when who should appear but my latest nemesis.  He's been sneaking around a bit lately (I once caught him making a nuisance of himself on the freshly washed dishes and debated long and hard whether or not this was information I was morally obliged to pass on to my flatmate or if, perhaps, the old "what she doesn't know can't hurt her" would be more to the point.) and, might I point out, we are not on Good Terms.

I endeavor to be on Good Terms with all those I share a home with, though honestly I put a lot more effort into the relationships with those who are actually on the lease.  Cocky, by my calculations, has not paid a single cent.  He is not at the top of my priority list, and he has been making a nuisance of himself.  Any self-respecting cockroach would have been avoiding me with a passion.

Clearly Cocky was not self-respecting.  Perhaps he was suicidal.  I have no idea, I really did not stop for a chat.  Well, I did sort of chat, but it was more to myself and the world at large than Cocky.

"Disgust!" I cried.  "Revulsion!"

(Yes, I really do talk like that when startled by creatures such as Cocky.  I try to curb such tendencies when meeting humans of whom I am less fond, and, I am pleased to report, am generally highly successful.)

Despite these clear indications of Bad Terms, Cocky did not flee.  Instead he ended up in the sink.  How exactly he got there I am not entirely sure, as it is all rather a blur of cockroach and boiling water and frantic movements to extract Dishes That FOOD Goes On! from the clutches of cockroach-ness for me.  Within instants Cocky was lying curled up at the bottom of my kitchen sink, utterly unable and unwilling to exit via the drain, which was what I was suggesting he do.  He was really too big for that, and I was in no mood to spare his sensitive feelings by hiding the fact.

"Why am I not married?!" I cried, again to the world at large.  "How else am I supposed to extract the dead cockroach from the sink?!"

Perhaps you do not understand why a cockroach in the sink was such a big deal.  You were not there.  It was.

I am, you see, perfectly capable of moving to the other side of the world, setting up a phone service, acquiring internet, renting a flat, finding a job, paying bills, filing for my taxes and maintaining a blog by myself, but it is at extracting dead cockroaches from sinks that I really, well, would draw the line if I could.

I've been a bit squeamish about a few such matters since childhood , though I will say tonight I managed not to actually shriek and wake my flatmate, for which I think significant credit is due.

Generally I keep a mental list of all the household-y type things I'm after a guy to do, and then I hold monthly games nights (clever, huh?) wherein my guests get the great privilege of changing my light bulbs and hanging my pictures.  (Bit frustrating when the light bulbs die just after one though and I have to, say, shower in the dark for three weeks.  Really, I would know.)

One time I actually had to hold a specific cards afternoon because half the bulbs in the flat were out and desperate times were calling for desperate measures.  Can you believe that was the very same day I accidentally got the measuring cups stuck in the silverware drawer and literally -- literally! -- had to have three guys pull it together in order to break the cups and reopen the drawer?  Thank goodness for good timing.  I was so grateful I let them win.

Tonight's escapade, though, even I felt required faster action than this Friday.  It is only three days, but, as I said, I really do draw the line at dead cockroaches in my sink.  I do have a friend who works in mental health and tells me about clients with flats in far worse states of disarray, but I'd much prefer to remain friends that become his latest client.  I stared at the dead cockroach and tried to work out if it was pretending.

Animals do that, don't they?  Curl up in  ball and play dead?  I had my suspicions that's what Cocky was about, but seeing as we were clearly no where near Speaking Terms, he didn't see fit to answer me.  He also didn't see fit to squeeze himself down the drain or turn over and walk away with a merry wave either, so I resorted swaying in the middle of the kitchen and waiting for a man to materialize.

When he didn't, I made the executive decision of grabbing a wad of napkins and putting on a pink rubber glove to remove the vermin with.  After feeling the wad through the glove, I ascertained it was not nearly thick enough and grabbed a bigger wad of napkins to add to it.  I also preemptively opened the trash can.

Thus equipped, I gave Cocky one last chance (though at that point I remain thankful he didn't take it, because it would really have set me on edge if he did a backflip while I was attempting to extract him) at making a dash for it, then, with the same sort of air of ripping a Band-Aid off hair, I made one swift motion that ended, I presume, with a dead cockroach in the trash can.  There's certainly a lot of napkins there.

I then removed the rubber glove and promptly washed my hands with hot water (it was rather conveniently still running, though had gotten frankly much too hot) and Bath and Body Works Vanilla Bean hand soap, which is really pretty perfect for occasions such as this.

If only there had been a man around to smell it.

quicko: the northern territory

The other day I was chatting with (he might argue "to") GarryWith2Rs, bemoaning the fact that I was running a bit thin on tidbits for the blog.  He very helpfully spent the remainder of our conversation expounding on the benefits of the Northern Territory. 

Interestingly, the NT has the only flag in Australia that doesn't include blue.  Instead, it is black, white and ochre (browny orange).    

I'll spare you the details of the NT, but thought you might like to know that, according to a devout local, "We're a lot more laid back here, we're a lot more multicultural, and we drink a lot."  Also, apparently, they have crocodiles.

quicko: a bush turkey

Never before have I gone to visit friends in a suburban neighborhood and found myself face to face with a bush turkey.  I stopped and stared long enough that friendly neighbors helpfully pointed out, "It's a bush turkey."  I'd been vaguely wondering how it got there and if someone was going to be coming looking for it.  Turns out probably not.

animagimoments

YES, there are kangaroos and koalas here, and YES, they are cute ... but there are so many other animals, too!

The first creature that made me do a double take was the ibis, which I found several of wandering around Wynyard Park while trying to find my bus. Basically, it's their beaks: they're long. They're actually very long and very thin and look like someone grabbed the bird by its beak with a pair of pliers and pulled. Ouch.

The second animal that made me do a double take was another bird: the cockatoo. It's not that cockatoos are so odd-looking (they're gorgeous birds), but that it was flying around of its own accord. I'm not exactly proud, but my first thought was, "but who feeds it?"

While we're on the bird theme, let me also just mention the rainbow lorikeet, the kookaburra, the pelican and the fairy penguin. The lorikeet can be a noisy little bird when it wants (it usually does), but it's got so many pretty colors combined in one small area I find it quite easy to forgive its happy outbursts. Goodness knows I'd be making noise if I suddenly turned green and red and yellow and blue, too!

The kookaburra, of old gum tree fame, is a fairly standard bird, by Australian standards. It is known for its laugh, though I like it most just for its name, which Merryn tells me I say funny because of my American accent. Same goes for the emu, the national bird, but after seeing them up close, I can’t claim to be much of an emu fan.

As for the pelican -- I had no idea how big they were. I thought I'd seen some in St. James' Park in London, but the ones at Collaroy Beach here were nearly twice their body size and four times their beak size. They didn't do much, but they certainly were impressive.

The fairy penguins, though -- can I get a collective awww? -- are eat-them-up adorable. They wander in from the Tasman Sea every night -- in groups, for safety, the little dears. They waddle from the water to their burrows, cooing to each other as they go. You just don't get more adorable.

It's not just the birds, though. The mammals are pretty amazing, too.

I have a soft spot for wombats, having personally been one for a brief while one afternoon, but that's another story. They're cute, seemingly cuddly critters who don't strike you as the most witty of dinner companions. They're more the sort you want to stand up for and defend when the other animals make fun of them, poor precious things.

The wallabies are smaller versions of kangaroos, and much more manageable in groups than their larger cousins; dingoes are the exotic wild dogs; and Tasmanian devils are the spinning tops of the mammal kingdom. It's not just the cartoon, they really are. My friend Holly and I watched one at a wildlife park for ages and it never stopped running in circles. We eventually gave up waiting for it to stop.

The one animal I still haven't managed to see here is the platypus, and I really want to. Evidently they're very shy, well-hidden animals, but I thought I could depend on Taronga Zoo to show me one, since it features so prominently on all the road signs directing you there. And I could have, if they hadn't put it to bed before I made it to the exhibit.

I know Australia's famous for being home of numerous poisonous, deadly and otherwise annoying fauna, but really, it seems to me that they get more than their fair share of press. Sure, you don't go swimming in crocodile-invested areas in the Northern Territories or cozy up to a friendly funnel-web, but you don't drop dead just by stepping off the plane at Sydney Kingsford Smith. There's plenty of people here who are still alive, trust me.

I will say, though, that my higher creepy-crawly tolerance has risen since coming. Little lizards, ants and spiders don't phase me nearly as much as before (a debatable tolerance level, I know), though the saturated dead mouse was still pushing things. Then again, I could have found that in America.

Despite Australia's diversity of creatures, though, you still can't find everything, including some seemingly common critters I thought were nearly everywhere -- squirrels, chipmunks, skunks, wolves, coyotes, robins, cardinals and bluejays, for example. I was also surpised to go to the Royal Easter Show and the zoo and see deer -- cute fawns, especially, but the concept of a deer was actually a relatively exotic one. And, as my flatmate has helpfully added (she's been helping me with the accuracy of my list), they haven't got bears, either.

To close with the cute, though, I will return to the infinitely adorable koala, which I have actually had the extremely rare experience of seeing up close and personal in the wild near the Great Ocean Road. Not only did I see it -- I actually got to climb the tree and sit on the same branch with it. Now, there's an Australian experience!