happy"Are you Seanan?" she asked, after Jeanne and I got into her van. I affirmed that I was. "I thought you'd be a bloke!"
"I get that a lot," I said.
We drove around Melbourne picking up the rest of our party (hi, Kate and David!), including a bunch of cheery, chattery ladies from Tennessee, and then we were off for the You Yangs, where we would see, presumably, wild koalas doing wild koala things. On the way, we were treated to an enormous cornucopia of Australian birds, including my new personal favorite, the Australian magpie. This is a magpie that is not fucking around. It doesn't just have patches of white, oh, no, it is a white-out FACTORY, and it is COMING FOR YOUR EYES. (Also of note, the magpie lark, which is a third the size, very similar in coloring, sings duets, and will peck the holy crap out of you if you get too close.)
After we'd been driving for a while, Janine pulled into a field so we could look at HOLY CRAP PARROTS. Just THERE. Being WILD PARROTS. Dude, what the FUCK, Australia? There were also a few magpies around, so I wandered off to take pictures of them. "Seanan ignores the ostensibly interesting wildlife to photograph magpies" was a big theme of the day.
Once everyone had finished flipping out over the parrots, we got back in the van and finished driving to the You Yangs. On the way in, one of the chattery ladies spotted a swamp wallaby. The van was stopped. I spotted a second swamp wallaby. Janine was delighted. The ladies were delighted. Everyone was delighted! I found a guide to the native spiders of the area. Everyone was less delighted, probably because of my well-voiced desire to become the Spider Queen and lead my arachnid minions to victory.
We were met in the eucalyptus grove by Mary, the koala guide, who had been koala scouting to make sure we'd actually see some. Since koalas don't move much, she wasn't that concerned that the koalas would have gone anywhere, and we went hiking off into the brush. Koalas are boring. They sit, very high, and do nothing. It's like staring at shelf fungus that will pee on you if you get too close. I quickly lost interest in koalas, and started picking things up off the forest floor. "Things" included feathers (two of which went in Janine's hat), eggshells, interesting rocks, and pieces of bone. I am a dangerous individual when bored.
We drove on to an inordinately large rock called, reasonably enough, Big Rock. We climbed Big Rock. This was fun for me. Not so much, maybe, for the Tennessee ladies. Sorry, Tennessee ladies. Janine fed us all gum, like, from a gum tree. Janine is the devil.
Next up: lunch, served in a lovely little picnic hut in Serendip Sanctuary. It included sandwiches, fruit, biscuits (tim tams!), and outback tea, made with fresh gum leaves. I did not drink the tea. Everyone else drank the tea. Everyone else is CLEARLY INSANE, and I say this as the woman who went to AUSTRALIA to look for SPIDERS.
Now fortified, we went to finish the tour, and look at kangaroos. It turns out kangaroos don't much like being looked at. You have to sneak up on them (totally easy when you're a large group of people, most of whom don't spend much time outdoors), stay quiet, and look at them through binoculars. And then, when they inevitably notice you, you get to watch them boing boing boing away. Super-fun. The kangaroos were boring. The many varieties of giant flesh-ripping ant were not. Neither were the echidna scrapes, the big orange bugs, the entire denuded emu skeleton, or—best thing ever—the dead kangaroo. Oh, the dead kangaroo. Its flesh had been picked away by meat ants, and I was able to truly study its structure. Plus, there was a spider inside its skull. Thank you, Australia. I love you, too.
(Upon discovering the dead kangaroo, I hankered down to study it and take pictures. Our guide gamely tried to make this educational, and not get upset about the fact that the crazy Californian was way more interested in the dead kangaroo than in the live ones. Thank you, Janine. You were awesomely tolerant.)
With rain imminent and everyone exhausted, we made one last stop, at a billabong completely filled with birds. Black swans! So cool! Then it was back to Melbourne proper, passing kangaroos, swamp wallabys, and dozens of magpies on the way. Janine asked us about pie (apparently, cherry pie is viewed as a cruel joke in Australia, where cherries cost eighteen dollars a kilo during the off-season). We answered as best we could, until at last, we were back at our hotel, and could collapse for a little while before heading back to the alley for dinner.
I had lamb. Holy crap, lamb in Australia is like a religious experience. Welcome to the First Church of Mary's Little Lamb, please pass the sweet potato mash.
It was a very good day. Even without spiders.
September 25 2010, 05:50:14 UTC 6 years ago
Koalas in shitfights with angry possums, that's a little alarming the first time you hear it. As is actual koala mating, which involves the usual deep booming plus high-pitched sqeals of pain from the lady koala.
Also there's something in the bush outside my window at home. We think it might be a quoll. We've never seen it, and its only purpose is to terrify our guests.
October 19 2010, 21:46:02 UTC 6 years ago
Because I am insane.