Billabong Sanctuary

We signed up to go to the Billabong Sanctuary so we could see some native (and adorable) Australian wildlife and hopefully feed them and pet them and hold them and cuddle them and love them forever and ever.

Sharkies (the student travel group on campus) had arranged the trip, and gotten our group a private tour with one of the rangers.  We can't remember his name, so we are just going to call him Nigel. 


He was enormously entertaining and very knowledgeable. Many of his jokes probably wouldn't fly if an American tour guide said them, but we found them hysterical.

"See that black and white bird over there? It has the same colors as the New Zealand rugby team. And just like kiwis, you can't trust them."
note: 'kiwis'= slang for New Zealanders 

"Koalas are a lot like Paris Hilton. Lots of people want to see them, lots of people want to take pictures of them.  But they don't do anything."

Except look cute... 

While sleeping 20 hours a day. 

After looking at the Koalas, he introduced us to Tonka the wombat. Apparently, after the cyclone that struck the area last year, Tonka lost a lot of weight due to suffering from depression from not getting "the pats and cuddles" he was used to because the park had to be closed to be rebuilt. 


When he opened Tonka's pen, the fuzzy little guy ran away.

Nigel carrying Tonka after chasing him down.

"He's the closest living thing to a teddy bear."

Rocking the shades and loving the attention. 

Us with Nigel and Tonka.

So after playing with the wombat, we walked around a bit and saw the ducks.

Maria cornered by the ducks. 

I liked feeding the ducks, even though it hurt when they bit my hand. 

Bribing them to be my friends. 

It's working! 

Smiling through the pain.

This, however, didn't stop me from feeding them every time we saw them.


Nigel then took us to see the freshwater crocodiles, explaining that crocs kill one person every two years in Australia, and generally the people they kill were doing something stupid to begin with. 


He walked into the pen, and began harassing the crocs.

"Only stupid people get bitten by crocs. So that takes them out of the gene pool. That's Darwinism right there."

As he waved his hat in front of their mouths, one of the foreign girls in our group (I think she was from somewhere in Europe) asked if we were all going to get to go in the pen too. I stared at her with wide eyes.

"Um... no!?" I probably sounded rude, but I did get to see the type of person Nigel was talking about.

Once his tour was done, he released us to have some free time.

"You guys now have free time to walk around. I know a lot of you females started lactating when you saw the kangaroos, so you can go see them if you'd like."

Maria and I went and bought little bags of food to feed the animals around the park. Especially the kangaroos. 

Little Joey in a pouch!!!!

LOOK AT THAT FACE! 

I was ecstatic. 

And so was the kangaroo mom when she found Maria's food.

Eventually the kangaroos were full, so we walked back to go watch a bird show. 

Maria's attackers.

A kite (bird of prey). 

After the bird show, reptiles were brought out. They showed us the only monogamous reptile in the world, a type of lizard. When this feature was mentioned, the females in the audience (and only the females) let out an "Awwww!" (Classic.)

Also classic: The guy who doing the reptile show (Nigel II) mentioned that although the lizards are monogamous, the male lizards leave the females during the non-mating season.  However, the males always came back with flowers and an apology for leaving which, of course, wins the females over year after year.

Next, Nigel II brought out an enormous one year old Burmese python.  He then proceeded to ask the audience if anyone had any unplanned children (to feed the python).  In Australia, this is funny to people.  In America, this would have been offensive.  

Then we went over and watched the turtle feeding and race.

Feed me.

An eel!

For the races, we convinced our side to name our turtle Sebastian ([]_ _[] )

Sebastian is on the right. 

Unfortunately Sebastian was not victorious.

Dingos!

I'm wearing shorts, I swear.

The only thing that I could think of every time I saw a dingo was..."A dingo ate my baby!"  This probably wouldn't have been funny to mention at the time, so I  just kept it to myself.

Crocodile show!

Nigel II ruining my shot.

Maria gets a perfect picture. We can leave now.

After the crocodile show, we got on the bus and headed back. For a moment it appeared as though the bus had broken down when the driver pulled to the side of the road, but I guess he just needed to check on something.

Oh, and we passed the army base.

:D