well, alive, back, and with over 400 photos between mums camera and mine. We flew to sydney, picked up the beaut little peugeot 407 (man that car was so COOL! comfy, TONNES of features) and got lost at first trying to get on the road to wollengong or whatever it was. and it was hilarious, cause as you may know, peugeots are european cars, and apparently (the nice guy that dropped the car off for us) the europeans like the indicators on the left side of the steering wheel and the wipers on the right. of course, this is obviously the opposite to most aussie cars, so for ages dad kept turning the wipers on instead of the indicator. bwahahaha. then mum drove later on, and did the same. then carl. then me. i only did it once though lmao. to those of you who have your licence, you know how automatic it is to just hit the indicator, so youll understand how weird it was. you had to move the stick UP to indicate right, and down for left. ah well. heres a picture of the car, before it got dirty...
oh yeah. the plane;
we eventually (after a 5hr or something drive) ended up at Batemans bay (which, for some reason, i cant pronounce properly and keep saying "batesmans bay" and become tongue-tied) we dropped our stuff and went for a drive around the place to investigate random stuffs. the coast line along there was beautiful, and out accomodation was right next to the water, and there was a carnival thingy set up across the other side of the road (they had this cool game there. theres a big round table with lots of little squares, saying "40", "60", "80" and "1.00" and you'd throw a 20cent coin on the table and try to get it to land completly within the square, then youd win however much the square said (ie, 40c,60c,80c or $1.00) and yeah. we were there for ages and just kept winning lol. but yeah.. we eventually left it :p
on the second day, we of course went to the zoo. parked at about 9:30 am or something, and went to go in. as we were giving our names and explaining who we were (i was told to do this to get in free of charge) the zoo owner came through and welcomed us, then suggested what order we looked around the zoo. so we went in, and the first animals we saw were servals. tonnes of people have no idea what they are, but theyre a bit bigger than the average domesticated cat, a sandy colour with black/dark spots, really big ears, a very short black tipped tail and they are VERY lanky. we were watching them and they seemed to be really playful. they were so cool! then we continued, and saw these weird, little primates. apparently theyre the smallest primate in teh world, and they were about the size of your fist, literally. we kept walking through the reptile area, saw the meerkats, giraffes, the white lion pride on display (the two lionesses, purr and joe (first cubs.. names after peugeot if you didnt figure it out) and the large, absolutly beautiful male, Tim) and continued to see the rest of the primates. they had gibbons and two species of lemurs (which were cool!) and spider monkeys, which seemed to enjoy running backwards really really fast, with their heads between their front legs looking behind to see where they were going.. they were hilarious... and then we saw the wild dogs, giraffe, scimitar oryx, two female ostriches, and the 3 zebras. then, when we were watching the giraffe again the zoo owner, sally, turned up and said that there was a change of plan and that we could see the lion cubs earlier (it was 10:30 or close enough, and we were sposed to see tehm at 12) the cubs were kept in the zoo owners yard, so we went up to the house and were greeted by a very, very large german shephard which decided to bark. eventually mum and i went in with the cubs first (cause they said they usually only take two people in at a time) and we sat down on the fabric the zookeeper laid down (which took a while, cause the cubs kept playing with it while she was trying to put it down) and the zookeeper brought in two massive bowls of food, which she called M&M's- milk and meat, the cubs lunchtime meal. the cubs of course loved it, and once theyd finished were very affectionate and playful.
eventually, over an hour later (which was awesome, cause they let dad and carl come it at the same time, and cause they usually only let two people in for twenty minutes. it was also awesome cause the zookeeper was giving me advice with getting to be a vet and teaching me things i didnt know about the lions) we had to leave, and the zookeeper (sorry, ive forgotten her name. she was awesome though, came from Africa and has worked with tonnes of animals) told us to wait at the gate just outside the owners yard and just outside the white lion prides enclosure, and left us. then she came back with a bucket, and i guessed right; animal feed. it actually turned out to be corn, and she took us to the giraffe and started teaching us about them. it was hilarious cause the show with the white lions had just finished, so there were lots of people around and when we went under the fence towards the giraffe we got lots of jealous looks.. but yeah.. we had an audience for ages... but.. continueing.. mum, dad, carl and i were all allowed to take a handful of corn seeds and hold it up for the giraffe to eat (palm flat, exactly the same as when you feed a horse) and i tell you, those giraffes slobber a lot. cause this guy was so tall, i had to look up to watch him (he's a small giraffe in comparison to fully grown adults, though he's four years old) and just as i looked up at him, he had lots of saliva that dropped out of his mouth all over me, and i had slobber all over my hand. i rekon ive got to be one of the few teenagers that was extremly happy cause i had giraffe slobber all over myself and my hand. i tell you, they have A LOT of saliva...
after the giraffe, the zookeeper said that she'd see us around the zoo most likely, and we obviously thanked her numerous times. we then headed to the vending machine and got drinks (it was about 38 degrees celcius and we'd been in the sun for ages) and then headed up to the other part of the zoo to see the bears, tigers, snowleopards, jaguar etc. as we were at one exhibit the same zookeeper saw us and said that we had to go back to the cubs, because she'd forgotten that there was a professional photographer (at 12pm) to take photos of me (the winner of the competition) with teh cubs that i named (tamu, the male, and kito, the female) for advertising and what not for peugeot (not exactly sure why) i of course didnt complain. this time it was even cooler though, cause the zookeeper gave me a bottle to feed each cub at a time (two bottles, one for each cub) so teh photographer could get good photos, and so the cubs would then settle down. have any of you ever bottle fed a 2month old lion cub? theyre very eager and love that milk, ill tell you now. while the photographer was taking photos, i could see the milk in the bottle was running out, and said so. the zookeeper came over to take the bottle, but as soon as the cub felt the bottle move (it was the male cub at first, tamu, and he's the bigger one) he dug his claws in. even though the cubs claws had been trimmed the day before (to prevent them from hurting their human parents as much when they play) they were still sharp, and very big, and tamu decided to dig his claws into my hand to keep the bottle. i had to quickly move my hand away, and the zookeeper grabbed the bottle away really quickly. then i got to feed kito, the female in the same way, and she wasnt so bad, and i pulled the bottle away when it was empty. whats really awesome is that the photographer is going to mail a CD to me with all of the photos he took. yay!
oh, and for those who may be curious... i asked how much the cubs weighed, and to let me figure it out myself the zookeeper dragged tamu into my lap and told me to guess how much he weighed. i guessed 20Kg, and was told he infact weighed 17Kg. lol.
Tamu is the biggest of the two cubs, being the male. he's the sook of the two cubs, and is still incredibly playful. Kito is smaller, finer shaped and is affectionate but didnt at that time seem to be QUITE as playful as tamu. kito was quite content to just sit by your lap and sleep while getting rubbed.
well, ill stop typing so much, i know its a long and boring post, but im still on a high from the trip! heres lots, and lots, and lots of pictures
Pictures of Tamu, the male cub
Pictures of Kito, the female cub
Pictures of both Kito and Tamu. can you tell which is which? i can :p
Mum and I with Kito
me with kito
me with both cubs
dad and i with kito and tamu
mum, dad, carl and i with the cubs
a really nice looking stag
gorgeous snow leopard pictures
Red panda
mum feeding the giraffe
Meerkats (these guys are awesome, i love em, theyre fantastic animals to watch!)
i know it was a really long post, but too bad :p its my blog and ill do what i want to! congratulations to anyone who read it all and whose computer didnt crash from loading so many pictures!!
