The Country Mice

What follows is a *guest post* by the Princess.

As part of her commitment to education (!) she is sending back reports to her Bowen teacher and classmates.

Here is her latest post.

Since my last letter to you all, I have left Korea, spent a day in Shanghai, arrived in Australia and seen some kangaroos!

My brother, mother and I are staying with our cousins in Ballarat, Australia. We are staying in their home, a place with a lemon tree, a passionfruit tree, a lime tree, a hedge (good for spying on the neighbours), a swimming pool and a trampoline — all in one smallish back yard!

For the last two days we have been caravanning in a caravan park. This means we have packed up all our things in a house trailer which we hitched up to the back of my cousins’ car and driven out into the Australian countryside.

We parked our caravan, hiked up about 400 feet and from that height, could see people looking like tiny dots.

On the way to the top, we saw an echidna, also known as a spiny anteater. Basically, it looks like a porcupine with a long snout. It looked really soft, although I know it wasn’t.

We also saw kookaburra, a barn owl, cockatoos and a red-breasted sparrow.

The next day, we headed off to a place called the Aboriginal Brambuk centre.

There, we learned how to throw boomerangs.

Unfortunately, there was no class at that moment and the man told us we would have to wait until 3 o’clock. Fortunately, my Aunt Louise told the man we were from Canada and so he decided to show us, just because we were from Canada.

I have only have one complaint:

Hetalkedsofastitwasreallyhardtounderstandhim!!!

Anyways, he showed us some really interesting stuff like tea tree as well as which plants you can eat and which are poisonous.

Finally the moment came: How to throw a boomerang.
It was actually really easy!
Basically, just a flick of your wrist!
After that we painted our boomers with plants and drew native things to make a story.
Later, after we had finished our class and said thanks, Mummy ordered us a platter with emu, kangaroo and crocodile.
So far we have already seen tons of kangaroos as well as an echidna.
Also lots of snakes and lizards.
No koalas yet!!!!
Foodwise, I preferred the croc. Then the emu and then the kangaroo. We also ate damper — the aboriginal word for bread.

It was all fun and I am looking forward to the rest of the week!

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Kind of a cheesecake pose, don’t you think?

Big Daddy here was clearly in charge of the troupe of ‘roos we saw up in the Grampians, a national park a couple of hours north and west of Ballarat, the town where we stayed, north of Melbourne.

Sorry — that should be *mob* of kangaroos.

This mob mama, and the rest of the ‘roos, were a real treat to watch. The amount of power in the hind legs when they’d leap up and take off was astonishing. Of course the movement appears graceful and effortless, but there’s so much power in the act of the ‘spring’ that we from the land of no marsupials watched and watched and watched with much appreciation.

Unlike their larger cousins in the true Australian outback, the campground kangaroos obviously are fairly familiar with the other bi-pedals that wander through their dining hall and Homeboy here was able to creep up rather close.

You talkin’ to me, kid?

Saw this little guy crawl in, turn around, and stick his head out again.

Storybook perfect!

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