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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Kentucky Down Under









The first part of the day, we were greeted by a beautiful Peacock. It was very friendly and we asked it to open it's feather's and it did. I got some great pictures of it. Next, was a cage of Dingo's, not exactly wild dogs, like the one's that grow up in the Outback. They looked pretty tame to us. One of the Guides even said they were way more relaxed than the mainland ones. Next was the birds, we saw a Kookabura, finches, parrots. . . .Madi thought it was so funny that a bird told her hello. The White Parrot was the only one that talked to us, and I guess all he could say was, "Hello". Okay, so we didn't know how Madi would react to feeding the Lorikeet's, but 'a picture is worth a thousand words' as they say. She was okay until one of them landed on her head. Once, the park ranger shoooed it off of her, she was okay after that. Poor Tony had them all hanging off of him too. They were after the little cups of nectar; only one of those birds got any of it. I named him Piglet! Madi got to see sheep next, then Camille the Camel. I looked up Camels in Austrailia and sure enough they had them there from some merchant trades long ago. Funny, I just don't ever hear about Camels in the Outback. Crocs and Kangaroo's, but not Camels. We saw baby lambs, Goats, and Big Horn Sheep. Madi got to pet them lambs and some of the bigger sheep. Then we saw a sheep herding dog, Rin, do his thing. He creeped around through the crowd and pushed the flock of sheep where he wanted them to go. The one odd thing about this park was it had one of the famous Kentucky Caves inside it, so we decided to tour it; it was free with admission. It was only 8/10 of a mile, and if it had been longer I don't think Madison would have lasted much longer. The last thing we enjoyed was the "Walk About"; in which we learned about Kangaroo's, Wallabies, and Emu's. We got to pet the Kangaroo's, but the Wallabies were not as tame so we didn't pet them. We also got to pet the Emu; they are large like ostriches and I guess you could eat them if you didn't want steak. I don't think I would be up for that though. So the Kangaroo's were interesting. One of them had a Joey in her pouch, and was nursing another Joey, but what was really interesting is that she had a pregnancy on hold while the Joey in her pouch was still gestating!!!! Poor Kangaroo. She would get a two week break between them and then be expecting again. So in essence a female Kangaroo can be pregnant permanently.....I guess no one ever told them what causes that? We wrapped up the day and headed back home. Great experience and Great Day!