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The country south of Sydney is beautiful. There are some wonderful Eucalyptus forests
and many pretty farms. If you saw the movie, Babe, you know what it looks like,
since Babe was filmed on the farm in the background of this picture. |
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Aussie and I are standing on part of a movie prop from the film Babe. This is
part of the farmhouse floor, and Aussie and I are looking at the duck's footprint made
when the animals walked through all that messy yellow paint in the movie. I'll have to go
see that funny movie again! |
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Since Aussie was from Australia, he offered to introduce me to all the other animals
that lived in Australia. On one of our walks through a forest south of Sydney we found
this tall ant hill. I'm sure glad there weren't any ants living there when Aussie and I
climbed to the top. |
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We saw many beautiful birds with all kinds of colors. I made friends with this large
bird who was curious about the corks hanging from Aussie's swagmans' hat. I think he
thought they were bugs that looked like they were good to eat. |
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There were lots of neat animals at a park we went to. Here I'm meeting my first
kangaroo. He was really friendly... he wanted to give me a big kangaroo hug! |
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This curious animal is a wallaby, which looks a lot like a small, cuddly kangaroo.
Aussie told me that kangaroos and wallabies are marsupials, or mammals that have an
external pouch in which the baby develops. |
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I had never seen a bat before this one. I didn't think bats grew to be that big. That
bat was so big that I thought he might eat me, but Aussie told me that he only ate fruit.
I also didn't know that bats usually sleep in the day. Did you? |
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Next we saw a big furry guy in a cave. At first I thought this was real, but he turned
out to be only a statue. I asked Aussie what that furry animal was and he said it was a
wombat. He told me that a wombat was a marsupial that burrowed under ground. |
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Mrs. Rogers decided to take a picture with a koala who wasn't Aussie. Aussie says that
koalas are not really bears, they just look like bears. Koalas are marsupials who have
long claws and like to live in trees and eat eucalyptus leaves and buds. Boy, there are a
lot of marsupials in Australia! |
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Before we left, I even got to ride on a kangaroo. I felt like a real Australian
cowboy! |
