Day one - Canberra

Day one – Canberra

We’ve been in Canberra for several hours now, and it’s exactly like I imagined it would be! We wanted to see some of the reptiles that Australia is known for, as a start of our journey. We had seen a big poster for the Australian Reptile Centre at the airport, so we decided to spend the day there. We saw a lot of animals that we had never seen before, not even on the telly!

One of the animals that really caught my interest was a short and strong marsupial. Many of the animals in Australia are marsupials, which are animals that carry their children in their pouches. The sign outside gave us some brief information about this animal. We learned that the marsupial is nicknamed the “Bulldozers of the Bush” due to the fact that it can move most things in their way, such as fences. There are three species of this animal, which are all only found in Australia. There’s the common wombat, the northern hairy nosed wombat and the southern hairy nosed wombat, of which all are different from each other. The common wombat is usually seen early in the morning or late in the afternoon during the cooler times. Being an animal that is adapted to eating plant materials, they mainly feed on grass but can also be found eating roots and moss.

After reading about the Wombats, we continued further in and stumbled upon an animal that I’ve always wanted to see, a koala bear! I did some research about the koala bears back home, just in case I’d come a cross one. The koala bears are marsupials as well, which means that they carry their young in a pouch, just like the wombats! They are a part of the family Phascolarctidae, which is a family that has almost died out. The koala bear is in fact the only member in the Phascolarctidae family that hasn’t died out yet. The koala bear isn’t actually related to bears at all, they’re just called koala bears because they’re as cute as teddy bears! 

 

We left the centre quite early because we were all quite hungry, due to the terrible food that was given on the plane. We went to a restaurant close to our hotel, and I decided to order a plate of grilled wallaby with fried potatoes. The food presentation was great, but it didn’t taste as good as it looked even though it’s considered an Australian delicacy. I was quite disappointed by this really, as I was recommended by loads of people to try out the wallaby. I’m looking forward for tomorrow an awful a lot, as we’ll spend the whole day in the Snowy Mountains skiing. I’m especially excited to see the cabins there, since they look very cosy in the brochure.

I’ve noticed that the steering wheel in the cars in Australia is always on the right side of the car, which is a big difference from the cars in Sweden. I believe this is because the first settlers that came to Australia were the British people, apart from the Aboriginals of course. And as we know, the British people always have their steering wheels on the right side of the car as well. It’s not that big of a deal, but it’s something that I noticed right away!