Animals by Jake

Animals by Jake

I'm going to write about all the animals that we saw on our trip to Melbourne, the Great Ocean Road, and the Blue Mountains. We saw animals in the Melbourne Zoo, in the wild, and at the Penquin Parade.

In the zoo we saw 7 elephants, kangaroos with emus, wombats, and many birds. We also saw giant tortoises, giraffes, and many more animals like penguins, lions, hyenas, spider monkeys, and oranutans. Dad liked the lions and the oranutans. Mom liked the lions. I liked the penguins and the hyenas. Kyle liked the spider monkeys and the lions. Mariah liked the penguins and the wombats. Everyone liked the lions because we got to see the keepers hide steaks and watch the lions hunt them down.

In the wild there were cockatoos, kookaburras, seagulls, rosellas, parrots, wallabies and kangaroos.

We also saw thousands of cows and sheep on the dry grass paddocks when we drove.

At one of our campsites there was a white duck with an ugly red face.

We went to a penguin parade where penguins came out from the ocean to go nest with their baby. Some penguins had a hard time getting past the seaweed. Some penguins go out of the water and went right back in because the seagulls scared them. The seagulls tried to scare the penguins so they would throw up the fish and the seagulls would get it. We didn't get to see too many go right past us, gut a ton went up to their nests in a different direction.

I think there's a ton of different animals in Australia that are not in the United States. I liked going to the zoo and I like looking at all the different kinds of birds.

The Blue Mountains Through Kyle's Eyes

We have now reached the Blue Mountains after an hour drive from the Jenolan Caves which Mariah will be writing about later. We stayed in a town called Katoomba at an elevation of about 3,000 feet. Here we checked into a nice campground. At my first sight of the mountains I was kinda surprised because the mountains were like no other I had seen before. There was a large valley running through out the the bottom and then huge cliffs coming straight out of the ground reaching 1,500 feet tall. Then, at the top of the mountains there isn't a summit, there is a plateau. There was no snow on the mountains when we went, but we are going back in July, which will be winter, and they could be pretty snowy.
The day after we arrived in Katoomba we went to the Scenic World. At the Scenic World there are 4 main things to do. They is the skyway, railway, tramway, and a large boardwalk. The skyway is like a large gondola that goes from the top of one cliff to an another on the other side of a 1,700 foot deep valley. One of the main features of it was that the bottom of the sky way was made of glass. This made the sky way quite a thrill. Next, is the rail way. This is the steepest rail way in the world. It averaged a 52 degree downward slope. It went right over the cliff side going through a cave on the way. This was just as much as a thrill as the sky way. Last, is the tramway. This was much like the skyway but instead of going over the valley it went down to the bottom of the valley. This averaged a slope just as steep as the slope of the train did, but we were dangling in the air. It started on a plateau on top and dropped over the edge into the valley 1,500 feet below. At the bottom of the valley there was a nice boardwalk. It went by the old mining caves and some tools. About a hundred years ago they mined coal there. When we were done with the Scenic World we went on to do some hikes in the area. We hiked to the 3 sisters. The 3 sisters are 3 very famous rock formations standing just next to each other. There is a long Australian legend that goes on to say, basically, that 3 aboriginal sisters were turned to stone by a witch doctor to be protected from another tribe at battle. Unfortunately the witch doctor was killed in the battle and the sisters had no way of being turned back to their human selves. In the picture you may be able to see a smaller rock formation. This is said to be the witch doctor.
The next day We took a hike that was about 6 kilometers. It turned out to be one of my favorite hikes I have ever done. The hike started at the top of one of the cliffs and ended at the bottom at a huge beautiful water fall. Stairs had been cut out of the rock in the cliffs to form the trail. In the picture with just Jake on the trail you can really see how you're on the cliff edge. Luckily there was a great handrail along most of the trail.
At the mountains there was heaps and heaps of huge cockatoos. They were everywhere. The picture of the white bird is a cockatoo. The picture taken was not zoomed in. The birds got very close to the people.

There is also A picture of hands in a cave. These hands were from Aboriginal people. Some of the hands dating back to 40,000 years old. Each hand was from a different generation
Thank you for reading my blog entry. If you have anything to say or any questions you can either email my at ksteen93@yahoo.com or post a comment on the blog.

~kyle

Easter Break Down Under

Melbourne Area

We are back from our fall break and we've decided to split up the duties of writing the blog amoungst the 5 of us. My task (Mike's) is to write about our adventures in and around Melbourne.

We headed out from Taree on Thursday the 5th after school and drove hard to Goulburn, a town a couple hours southwest of Sydney up in the 'mountains' (we smile because the tallest 'mountain' in the whole country is about 7000'). We crashed at a hotel and got up early the next morning to drive the 7-8 more hours to the capital of Victoria. We arrived and checked-in to a 'backpacker hotel' which was nicely located right downtown. We learned that 'backpacker' means cheap, dirty and loud. 23 years ago I traveled through Europe in places like this and loved it...I must have gotten old. We really only slept in the place as we were busy being tourists all day long.

We walked extensively around Federation Square, through the gardens and parks along the Yarra River, and saw an Aussie Rules 'Footy' game at the famous Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG to those 'in the know').

We shopped through the Queen Victoria Market, went to the Melbourne Zoo (which will be one of Jake's categories), toured the suburb of St. Kilda on Easter morning, then went south to Phillip Island to see the Penquin Parade (which Jake will also handle).

On our way home at 11:00 pm, 30 miles south of the city, our car's radio shut off, the dash lights dimmed and the accelerator no longer performed its designated task. We barely rolled onto the shoulder of the dark freeway. Our flashers didn't even have power, nor did our blinkers. Our alternator was shot. We had no power at all. I stayed with the newly energized kids while Wonder Woman jogged to the next exit, found a phone and called for a tow truck. The 6 of us piled into the cab of the tow truck and went to a auto shop which of course was closed as it would be the next day due to it being a national holiday (day after Easter). From there we took a $60 taxi back into the city and were carless until Tuesday midday. I took a train back down to the shop, walked to it from the train station. $500 dollars later I was driving back up to Melbourne to pick up the brood and looking forward to getting out of the city and onto the Great Ocean Road (Karen's topic, I think). The city was nice, but I prefer nature and was about to be innundated with it.

We hope you enjoy the photos. The one of Karen looking bummed out is in the taxi!

The other photos are in and around the second biggest city in Australia, at the game, and 3of those wild U.S. monkeys in a tree.

Part 1 of 5 is complete...Enjoy the other 4.