matty's travel blog: Noosa 4.11.2012

The Australia Zoo

On the 5th of November i went on a one day trip to the Australia Zoo. The admission for the zoo is quite exspensive it*s about 50 Australian Dollars i think. For students it might be a bit cheaper. At the travel agency they told me that this zoo is unique in the world, because you can interact with the animals like for example hold a koala in your arms or something like that. But now that i visited this zoo i must say that i would have expected more for this amount of money. In my opinion it*s more or less just a regular zoo. I*ve been to zoos which are similar to this and only cost half of the price.
If you want to hold a coala in your arms this is only possible if you let a picture taken of you and the koala. And for that i would have had to pay 25$ or something like that.

At the zoo they told me that most of the koalas sleep about 20 hours a day. I didn*t know that. I always thought that they would climb around all day and eat. But obviously as you see in the picture they sleep most of the time. They also told me that koalas cannot see further than a distance of about 1 meter but instead have very good ears.

one of the koalas sleeping in its tree

sleeping koala

The animal i had been looking forward to the most was the cangaroo. Because i think i have never seen one in real life before. They are really interesting creatures i think. But in this zoo all the cangaroos where just lying around on the ground all day and doing nothing. None of them was walking or jumping around. I think one of the reasons for that is that they are caught in this cage all day. And all the time - like every 5 minutes - people are walking over to them and feed them with feed which you can buy at the zoo. This is even less encouraging for them because then they dont even have to stand up in order to eat something. In the nature they would have to search for something to eat, and here they just wait until someone walks over to them and holds his hand in front of their mouths.

cangaroos lying on the ground

cangaroo lying on the ground 1

cangaroo lying on the ground 2

me and one of the cangaroos

The largest compound in this zoo obviously i guess had the zebras and the giraffes.

giraffs and zebras

Noosa Everglades

From the 6th to the 8th of November i went on a canoeing trip through the Noosa Everglades. We started our trip early in the morning i think at about 8 am. There a private bus picked us up and brought us to the harbour. From there a motor boat brought us to the starting point where we should start our trip. At about 9 am i think we arrived at this point where our trip should start. We were a group of about 17 people. First of all we had to load our canoes with all the food and equipement like tents cooking pots, frying pans, drinking water and so on.

the start point

Then our trip started and we had to paddle upstream with our canoes in the direction of our camping spot. One of the first things we passed was a beautiful lake with water lilies, which we had to cross.

a lake with water lilies

After crossing this lake of water lilies we had to paddle further upstream. At the travel agency they had told me that the everglades were unique in a way that it was one of the places in the world were the water was like mirror, and you could see all the reflections in the water. You can see yourself on the pictures down below.

we paddling the river upstream with our canoe

reflections on the everglades river while paddling upstream to the camp

After about 1-2 hours i think we arrived at our camping spot where we had to build up our tents.

the boardwalk at our camping spot

the boardwalk at our camping spot 2

sign with instructions how to use the camping spot

the camping spot before we built up our tents

the everglades river as seen from the camping spot

the everglades river as seen from the camping spot 2

After we had built up our tents and had something to eat, i went on a small trek for 1-2 hours with some people of my group through the forest.

the forrest near our camp

me in the forest near our camp

On our way through this forest we found a toad which was somehow flat. Probably it had been hit by a bigger vehicle. At the same day in the night i found one of its siblings in the darkness. It was not moving at all probably because it was afraid of me.

a flat toad

a flat toad 2

a toad in the darkness

In the evening before i went to sleep i took this picture of the noosa river.

the everglades river in the evening

Most of the time at this camp we were only eating and drinking, which was nice, but i had not brought a lot of things to eat because i had thought that i would have to do longer treks with all my food and walk long distances carrying all my food. So i only had some small packages of noodles with me. If i had to do this same trip again i would definetely bring a lot more of things to eat. Because all the food was only transported on the canoes, and i didn*t have to carry it around over long distances as i had expected. And yes there was enough spaces on the canoes to transport the food.

On the second day (the 7th of November ) we paddled further upstream to the beginning of a path which should bring us to a sand dune somewhere in the forest. At the beginning of this path there was a sign which said that you might get hurt or even die if you walk this way, as shown in the picture down below.

me at the beginning of the path to the sand dune

We nevertheless walked all the way which was about 12 km there and back. On the way at some points you could already see the sand dune far away. You could also see a bit of the everglades forest but the trees were hiding the landscape. But from the sand dune as shown later we had a beautiful view over the whole area of the everglades.

the way to the sand dune

After walking about 6 kms uphill we finally reached our destination: the sand dune. Which was simply a big bunch of sand in the middle of the forest. The special thing about it is that from this dune you could see all the area of the everglades.