I went wandering for hours in the Royal Botanic Gardens of Sydney, which is along one side of the beautiful Sydney Harbor (great views of the opera house and the bridge). There were lovely plants, wonderful views, gorgeous beach shores, and loads of birds and bats. In certain areas that were plentiful in tallish trees, you could look up and see hundreds of dark pods hanging from the trees, and yes - those were bats. Big ole hairy bats. In other parts of the garden were signs advising people to not feed or attempt to pet the bats. I'm guessing that because these areas had smaller trees, trees that an ambitious person could climb, that someone had climbed them once and got the gift of rabies or something from a bat slapped out of its slumber.
There were also flying foxes out in the garden, but I didn't see any of those.
And the birds - crazy with birds, Sydney is. Mostly cockatoos. They are everywhere, and most of them are the size of a five year old. I'm not kidding, they're really frikkin' huge. And they scream. In flocks. My first evening in Sydney, I remember being really shocked by the sound of a woman being attacked outside my hotel room, and then I saw that it was a cockatoo sitting in a tree near my window. And they're mean. A poor tourist in the gardens who hadn't yet figured out that cockatoos in Oz ain't quite the same of the cute little things that ride your shoulder in the States was trying to feed one. The cockatoo slowly approached him, then glanced over it's shoulder, made a noise, and bit the guy while three of its friends came to pick up the crumbs that flew out of the guy's hand when he jumped back. Then these punkass birds turned around and mugged this other bird that was just standing nearby eating bugs or something. And this bird seemed to be bigger than these guys, but what can you do? Four against one.
Jabiru, the victim bird:
And the gangstas:
On the train ride from Sydney to Melbourne, I spent hours talking with this guy sitting next to me about how these animals came about. He had read some really great books about how Australia had been an independent land mass for so long, that things developed without influence of anything else (hence the platypus or echidna or sugarglider) and can't be found anywhere else. Or, they didn't develop at all (stromatolites). I took notes and wrote down the names of some books he recommended, him being a grad student or something in this subject. Then it was late, and we both dozed off, only he started grabbing at my ass and other parts under the guise of "sleep-roaming," so I slept-walked right to another car in a hurry and left my travel diary behind. Sigh.
