Kiwi Paradise : Feeding a Kangaroo and Dressing Like a Convict

Sara, Elise, and I were at the bus stop by 9 looking forward to a day at the wildlife park! We've heard that the wildlife park is a lot cooler than the Sydney zoo so that's where we opted to go. Almost 2 hours later we arrived (we had to ride a bus, then a train, then another bus thank goodness for that pass!). It was so awesome! We had a chance to feed kangaroos and pet them! I was surprised by how rough their fur was- it wasn't as soft as I thought it would be. Same with the Koala- yes we also got to touch and take pictures with a koala! There were little joeys poking in and out of their mother's pouches. Emus and peacocks were just walking around like they owned the place. It was incredible! There were also animals I had never seen before like Dingos (the coyotes of Australia they look like dogs), Bilbys (rabbits are pests here instead of an Easter Bunny they have an Easter Bilby which makes more sense since they lay eggs (they are mammals though) and they are nocturnal), Echidnas, and Wombats (I touched one!!). There were also tons of birds from tiny finches to large eagles. All in all it was a neat experience!

We ate lunch while waiting for the bus to take us back into town. We got dropped off in time to catch the train that would take us to circular quay (pronounced key) and from there we walked down to the Hyde Park Barracks museum. Along the way I had my first taste of heaven- allow me to introduce you to Magnum bars! This is no ordinary ice cream bar- oh no it is so much more! I decided to go with the carmel flavor which was vanilla ice cream-covered in dark chocolate- covered in carmel- covered in milk chocolate. SO YUM!! We ate our bars on the way to the museum. This museum was one of the coolest museums I've been to and we had a coupon with our student ID that brought the cost down from $10-$4.

The barracks were where some of the convicts that were shipped here from London would stay. It was super interesting because I was able to learn more about the history and colonization of Australia through the convicts as well as a brief history of the aborigine people and their relationship with the british. They gave us a walkie talkie like thing where we would push a button and it would give us information about a specific room or place. Along the way we had the chance to dress up like convicts and chance ourselves to a chair :) (Mom aren't you proud?!) The barracks were also were thousands of Irish young women were shipped during the potato famine in Ireland back to keep them from starving. I love learning about history that I have never heard before.

After the museum we walked through Hyde Park and on to Chinatown. The walk was nice. We got to see Darling Harbor which takes in part of the marina as well as a giant square with the largest IMAX movie screen in the world. By this point the sun had gone down and we got to see the city light up again. There are so many parks and beautiful squares that make the city look very clean and taken care of. We eventually came across Chinatown which turned out to be a street full of chinese restaurants with lots of people trying to get your business by holding out menus for you to look at. The coolest part was that we got to see giant crabs in front of one of the restaurants. We walked around for a little while and then decided to head back home.

After being dropped off by the bus we stopped by the grocery store (about a 20 minute walk from where we are staying) to get some food and such for the rest of the week. Although it was only around 9 by the time we got home we were again exhausted and ready for bed. Thank goodness tomorrow is our conference Sunday so that we can just relax and rest.