Wombat, Wallabies, and Kangaroos

Clearly the whole "write tomorrow" thing didn't happen, but better late than never, right? This past weekend was pretty exciting. Friday afternoon Paul and Kate took us to something called "Nearer to Nature" where we got to play with some native Australian animals and learn a little about the aboriginal culture. We got to pet a wombat, hold some kagaroos, and watch a wallaby jump around. The woman who showed us the animals takes care of abandoned animals. They all stay at her house and she takes care of them until they are old enough/strong enough to be returned to the wild. Sounds like an awesome job, right? I want kangaroos jumping around my house all day.  Anyways, here are some pictures with the animals...

Wombat!

Jocelyn petting the wombat

Kangarooooo

Wallaby!

A baby opossum...kinda looks like a rat 

After we played with the animals we went and learned how to make axes the traditional, noongar way. I don't have a picture of one but, basically, you find a stick (should be about a foot long and thicker than your thumb) and you heat it in the fire, and then you take the ground resin from a plant (I forget what it's called) and put that resin on the hot wood and then heat it again, put it in the resin again, heat it up, etc. until the resin is really thick and then you put the stones in the resin and continue the resin process until the stones are firmly stuck to the stick. Pretty cool.

Making the axes

The orange stuff is the resin

Our guide (Zach) then took us on a little hike through the woods where he showed us a plant that, when you rub it with water, makes soap and found us some wild carrots. We tried the carrots and, strangely, wild carrots are spicy. After the tour, Paul and Kate took us to Dome, which is a little cafe/restuarant where we had dinner, and then they drove us back to campus.

The rest of the weekend was pretty relaxing. I stayed in for the weekend and (attempted) to do homework. Sunday I tried to do work but decided to go to the markets in Freo instead. Even though I tried hard, Saturday and Sunday were pretty unproductive but, fortunately, Monday was a good work day. Tuesday I had my internship which is finally starting to come together (yay!). Although I'm still stressing about it a little bit, I think people are expecting something a lot bigger than it will be....and we don't even have a venue yet, so that's a little worrying. But it will all get figured out soon, I hope.

Anyways, off to get ready for class.
xxx


P.S. I turn 21 in 7 days :)