And other Animals.

My work has a new thing, where we can go work in another country for up to a month- providing we have the legal right to be there and clear it with HR for tax purposes.

For me, that means Australia in the AutumnTime now became a reality. So back in October, as London started turning gross and grey, I hopped on a plane and migrated south to sunshine.

To be met by this beautiful creature:

My cousin Ashleigh kindly took some time off work, and I got to hang out with her and her family (partner, two doggos, and four cats), and spend time watching old cartoons, doing crosswords badly, and even trick or treating.

And also one day, we went to Perth Zoo.

To see the kangaroos.

(NB: this is an impostor kangaroo, aka a tree kangaroo. They are actually marsupials, but are found mostly in New Guinea, with only a tiny habitat in the far north of Queensland).

Let’s Go See some Animals!

Giraffes:

Please choose your favourite- giraffe a, giraffe b, giraffe c.

Meerkats:

And some really cute little monkey guys, which zoom in tubes across the sky above your head.

Some of the animals were definitely playing ‘hard to get’:

(That’s a red panda way up in those branches).

And others were just very hard to photos, for example every single animal in the nocturnal house. I was incredibly thrilled to get to see a feather tailed glider, and actually get to watch a few of the various australian gliding marsupial mice throw themselves into the air.

But I also realised that my eyesight is… not so great. Nine times out of ten, Ashleigh was the one who spotted the tiny critters, and then about eight times out of ten she also had to actually point my head in the right direction.

Take home message is that I need to get my eyes checked, and I’d make a terrible owl.

One of my main reasons for going to the zoo was a desire to see the Aussie animals.

But as it turns out, that whole ‘Australians are lazy’ stereotype maybe has some truth.

Koala, asleep

Tasmanian devil, asleep

Kangaroos and wallabies, asleep/ just resting bro.

We did manage to see a quite awake kookaburra while getting some food, but he was not actually one of the zoo animals, just an animal who happened to be in the zoo.

We did manage to ride a numbat (the actual numbat enclosure was not open to the public)…

and saw some pretty birds, including this fancy guy who was actually just a full on jerk to all the other birds:

And all up there was a good cluster of animals (and animal art) for us to stare at, or pose with:

The reptile house was pretty awesome, especially because a couple of them seemed awake and ready to become friends:

But of course, the best of the best was the little fairy penguins.

I need to finish by showing my amazing Aussie dessert (lamingtons and milo icecream!), and a small selection of the animals I got to go home to that night: