Another Weekend with Terry

Terry took Tomako and I  to a quiet beach to have a BBQ. Tomako works, by the way, in Perth as a language assistant for Japanese people.

We had too many onions left, so Terry fed the seagulls. Within minutes, hundreds of them arrived.

Then, we went to a beach with waves of maximum 5 centimetres. I took my camera into the water and made a panorama.

Suddenly, our neighbours started talking loudly. The reason was that 5 dolphins were swimming at about 5 metres distance to the coast. It was the  first time I’d seen wildlife dolphins!

These big black birds wake me up every morning with their crazy voice.

That's how they sound...

A close look at a seagull.

Western Australia’s heraldic animal (Wappentier): the black swan.

The trip ended with this beautiful view over the Swan River.

Caversham Wildlife Park

On the 30th of January, Terry took me on a trip to Caversham Wildlife Park.

The park contains a vast range of animals, most of them indigenous.

A wonderfully colored bird: the lorikeet.

That's a wallaby. A marsupial, but not a kangaroo.

This lovely corella "danced" with Terry: It imitated Terry's hand with its head!

 This owl barks. No lie!

I really like kangaroos: They are very relaxed and unhurried, especially when it's too hot. You could easily imagine him having a beer in his paw, couldn't you?

No, it's not dead, it's just lazy!

We could feed them... Nice experience.

The park was full of birds. Terry said that he'd seen this bird only 4 times in his whole life. It wasn't in a cage, by the way.

An emu...

A small white wombat.

This kangaroo seemed to be pretty old: He slobbered when I fed him and his looks speak for themselves...

Hilarious!!!

That's Tommy, Terry's donkey friend. He opens his mouth wide open and Terry throws food in it.

That's a more classic wombat. Strange animal, isn't it?

Another wombat scratching his back.

Last but not least, maybe Australia's most famous animal: the koala. Koalas are very idle and can easily be stressed. That's why you may only stroke them with the reverse side of your hand. Koalas sleep almost 20 hours a day. They can't loose too much energy because eucalyptus, their main nourishment, only contains a little amount of sugar and other energy containing substances.

Australia Day: 26nd of January

Australia Day is like the First of August in Switzerland: It's a public holiday and in the evening: you blow up fireworks. Well, not exactly. It’s illegal to use fireworks. This does make sense because of bushfires. These are a real problem in Australia. Faye told me that living in Australia; you either have the danger of flooding of bushfires. Or both, of course!

I chose to meet a classmate in South Perth to spend the day having BBQ and drinking beer. South Perth was the one perfect spot therefore since the city centre is exactly on the opposite side of the Swan River. The fireworks were to be launched from platforms on the Swan River so you could see the fireworks and in the background the city centre.

The barbeque was perfect.

Drinking beer not so much. There was security staff everywhere which ensured that we were not doing so. But for most problems, there is a solution: We just poured the beer into non-transparent thermos bottles.

During the day, we were entertained by a sky show.

This is the Australian flag in front of the central city.

Oh yes, we also entertained ourselves with a ball. Once, it fell into the river and we couldn’t reach it, because of the jellyfish in there. A few minutes later, a PWC (jet-sky) came and threw it back to us. True Aussie spirit!

It was a hot day; we spent most of the time in the shade.

South Perth was obviously meant to be a place for families on Australia Day. We were almost the only ones drinking alcohol.

That’s the banana express, supplying us for free!

Here we have another picture of an airplane flying very close to the coast.

Sunset was beautiful indeed.

Indeed indeed.

The barbeque dinner take two as well. The guy on the picture, by the way, is living in the same homestay next to my room. His name is Axel and he’s Suisse-Romand. And very hungry!

 Then, finally, the fireworks.

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That's a picture of the big finale, taken at almost 9 p.m. It was not supposed to be the end of the evening, but it was. Oddly, most Australians, even the young ones, went home after the firework! On our way back to the train station in the city centre, we saw 3 Aussies who asked: .You seem to know where to party. Where you going?. We answered that we didn't know where to go but home. They accompanied us to the train station (they were soooo funny!) and then went home as well. I was surprised and, to be honest, a little disappointed.