Nearer to Nature

For a small, lovely fee of $25, the International Studies Office set us up with a day trip called "Nearer to Nature" so that we could, presumably, get nearer to nature... that means looking at kangaroos and fun things like that. This actually occurred on the Saturday before classes began, so I'm a little bit slow. On with the story...

We left the college at about 10:00 am to take an hour bus ride out of the city and into nature. Shortly after we arrived, we were split into two groups and I went to go see the animals. From what I understood, this was actually like an animal shelter and nature center mixed into one. One of the ladies working there showed us all kinds of animals ranging from two baby kangaroos to the spiky echidna. I even got to hold one of the baby kangaroos. As you can see, there are pictures of many of the Australian animals here and a video of the echidna at the very bottom of the post. From here we moved on to the next part with Leonard, who taught us how to make some indigenous tools. We all made what he simply called a knife, but more along the lines of what I think is a battle ax. The ingredients: one stick, one piece of quartz, resin, charcoal, kangaroo poop (mmmmmmmmm). The procedure: the resin, charcoal, and kangaroo poop were all mixed together in about a 12:2:1 ratio, respectively, to create the orange stuff that you see in the picture. This was the put on the end of the stick and heated over the fire for a few moments before more of this was added and then heated. This process continued many times until there was a large gooey mess on the end of the stick. At this point, the quartz was placed within the gooey mess and the whole thing was cooled so that it hardened in place.

After this we had lunch and then proceeded to go to a presentation given by a man about birds. It wasn't anything too exciting because they were many of the same birds - eagles, falcons, and owls - that we have in the US. Apparently this bird to the right can read the text of a book from over 1 kilometer away and its talons are remarkably strong.

Finally, we finish our day with Leonard as he took us on a short walk through the bush describing how the aboriginals lived in the olden days. I learned that there are actually two kinds of boomerangs. The one that you and I are familiar with is a small one that you throw and, if done correctly, will some back to you. These are used to scare birds out of a tree of to get them to start flying away. It mimics the sound of a hawk flying through the air. Once a whole flock of birds are out, then the second boomerang is used to bludgeon the birds down. It is much bigger and does not actually come back when thrown. The rest of the walk was just little things about how they lived and what different parts of the bush were used for. It could have been a lot cooler, but we were a little pressed for time at this point. Oh well. Enjoy the echidna!