Heron

Heron island is on the Great Barier Reef.   It is completely made out of sand which is mostly made out crushed coral.  When we were there, we went snorkeling.  We went to the "Bommies" which are giant coral domes that are called "bombora" but people here call them Bommies for short.  The Bommies was rated 3rd best snorkeling in the world by Jaques Cousteau.  We also went to the ship wreck of the HMAS Protector. It was a flat iron gun boat built in 1884 for the Australian navy and used in WWII by the US army.  The boat was about 180 ft long.  After it was damaged by a collision, they decided to use it as a breakwater for heron island.

My favorite  part of Heron was swimming with the sharks.  There were white-tipped and black-tipped sharks.  We saw huge sea turtles coming to the Bommies.   What they do is they sit on the Bommies and the cleaner fish eat the dead skin and parasites off that could hurt them.  

Mom went on a night walk and saw a huge turtle laying eggs on the beach!   In the old times the sailors were scared to go on the island at night because they thought it was haunted because at night they heard weird noises.  What they really heard were mutton birds.  What they do is they dig a burrow under ground at night and go "WHOO WHOO".  The sailors thought they were ghosts (trust me I walked alone in those woods and it was freaky).  

We saw so many fish.   Here are some of the fish I saw:

  

FISH:

parrot fish

cleaner fish

sweetlip fish

angle fish

clown fish (Nemo)

coral trout

grouper

needle fish

lion fish

Shovel head ray

Manta ray

Lemon shark

parrot fish

puffer fish

turtle

black tipped shark

me and dad at Bommies

school of fish

reef

me

me

ship

turtle tracks

one of the Bommies

helppppppp

Clio's Animal of the Week #8: Tasmanian Devil

Tasmanian Devils are carnivores.  They only live in Tasmania, which is an island south of Australia.  Tasmanian Devils are an endangered species.  They usually live by themselves but sometimes eat in a group.  They weigh about 12kg when they are grown up.  They can climb trees and swim. They are nocturnal.  The Tasmanian Devil is the only marsupial that eats meat.  Their bite is as strong as a 40kg dog's bite.  I saw the Tasmanian Devil at Lone Pine Koala sanctuary.  They have little, cute pink ears.

  

Clio's animal of the week #7: Kangaroos

Kangaroos are marsupials.  A marsupial is an animal with a pouch.  There are four main kinds of kangaroos; the eastern grey, the western grey, the antilopine, and the red kangaroo.  Kangaroos eat grass and some other plants.  They are grazing animals.  A group of kangaroos are called a "mob".  They look cute and fuzzy.  Their faces look like dog faces to me.  The joey (baby kangaroo) spends 190 days in the pouch before it comes out the first time.  After 235 days it leaves the pouch forever.  Kangaroos stomachs are similar to cows.  They don't eat meat or insects.  They are herbivores.  

Girraween

Last week we went to to Girraween.  Girraween is a national park covered in 29,157 acres (11,800 hectares) of giant granite outcroppings and eucalyptus forests.  Girraween did not start out as one big park.  In 1930 a small area called Bald Rock Creek was declared a national park.  In 1932, Castle Rock national park was established.  In 1966, Napier Gunn (not related to me) gave the 54 hectares that separated the the two parks to the government and it became Girraween National Park.  Girraween is an Aboriginal word that  means "place of flowers".

We went camping at Castle Rock campground.  The bus had a safari kitchen (a kitchen in a trailer), which was great because we could have hot, fresh meals like steak and corned beef.  All the water we drank came from the stream and it was yellow because of the tannins from the leaves.

On the second day, we hiked 2.6 km up Castle Rock.  We went up a steep slope to get to the top.  On the third day we hiked up the Pyramid.  It was a 31 degree angle up 200 meters of exposed rock.  The hike was really steep up to the top but it was worth it because you got a 360 degree view of Girraween.

Girraween has hundreds of Eastern Gray kangaroos running all over the place.  Before it was a national park, Girraween was mostly farm land so when it became part of the park it grew into giant fields of grass, perfect for kangaroos.

kangaroo

our tents

students on rock

swimming hole

me and Clio on rocks

me running up rock

face rock

Pyramid

looking up pyraimd

don't look down

the angle of the pyraimd

from the top of the pyraimd

bald rock creek

kangaroos in field 

joey 

safari kicten

cook

West end farmers market

Today we went to the West End farmers' market.  They have lots of things like Greek food, Turkish food, donuts, and jewelry. There are many different cultures there.  We saw an aboriginal man (native people) playing a didgeroo (instrument) .  I am getting one for my birthday. We also went slack lining, which is like tightrope walking. The didgeridoo is a wind instrument invented 1,500 years ago. You play it by doing something called circular breathing.       

 me and man dressed up for film fest

slack lining

west end farmers market

west end farmers market