Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Octopus's Garden

One Saturday in the beginning of July I went down to the Royal Botanical Gardens to check them out. They are free, and it was a nice day, so I thought it would be good to go. They were huge and I quite tired myself out walking around them!One of the things I really wanted to see was the bats. There are thousands of them living in the Botanical Gardens. Unfortunately, they are destroying the trees, so the management is trying to scare them off by blasting noise at them.

Here’s one flying. They are large fruit bats, also known as flying foxes.

When I saw this sign, I got kind of irritated. I don’t know why Fievel has to spend so long in quarantine if Australia already has a rabies-like disease.

Bats are not the only thing in the gardens. Australia has wild cockatoos and there were a whole bunch of them hanging around.

They were pretty used to humans and let me get up close.

These people were letting the birds land on them. I was not brave enough to try it.

I also saw this guy. He is a Tawny Frogmouth. At first I thought he might be fake because he was so still. But one of the garden personnel told me that they are nocturnal, so I guess he was sleeping.

The garden also has a beautiful view. This picture is for Sue, who appreciates urban canyons more than wild ones.

I liked the view of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.

The gardens were really neat, but a little dull since it is winter here. I hope to come back frequently to see the plants in all their glory in spring, summer and fall.

5 comments:

Ann Flowers said...

I just recently discovered your blog and am so glad I did. What a sweet post!

Carlw4514 said...

keep em coming!

I was curious, how expensive is it to travel to some other part of Australia? Supposedly, there is a great Park to visit in the NW section [IIRC] but I'm wondering if it costs mucho to go over there from Sydney?

L said...

Thanks, Ann! Hope you keep returning!

Carl, I am not sure on prices as I haven't checked them out yet. Australians tell me it's "cheap" but I haven't found anything to be cheap here yet. I do want to go check out some other areas of Australia, including Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth, so I will look into that soon. Which park are you talking about? And what does IIRC mean?

Carlw4514 said...

IIRC= "if I remember correctly"

check out
http://kb.iu.edu/data/adkc.html

I was watching a program on Australia and it had this park in it. Sort of an Australian Yellowstone or Yosemite [what I mean is spectacular, not similar] Unfortunately the name of it did not stick.

L said...

Thanks for the link, Carl.

I will have to do more research on the park. I hope to get to Perth while we're here, maybe we can take a jaunt to N.W. Australia as well.