close encounters

so where did we leave it off?
mette singing about the kookaburra in the old gum tree. she had seen only one kookaburra so far and that one was in captivity in the sydney zoo - for whom she and arjen berendsen's children (dutch living in l.a.!) sang. arjen and anne marij said that they just had lunch and a woman got robbed by a kookaburra from the food she had in her hand, leaving a big scratch.
on wednesday night, in the campground by national park mount warning, allards stroller had turned into an old gum tree because a kookaburra had landed on it, just when everyone sat down for dinner. grab the camera, shoot some pictures and scare away the big bird was the thought. only the latter proved impossible. a branch of a palmtree waved it him was greeted as food by the kookaburra. poking with a pole on his chest was regarded by him as scratching. even tom running towards him screaming (mette:daddy gaat hem wegjagen/daddy's gonna scare him away) didn't help (and made daddy feel like a failure). after the lunch story in sydney it didn't seem to be a good idea to start with dinner yet.
tom asked for help from the guy from the campground and it turned out the kookaburra knew the difference between locals and foreigners because he stayed away after the guy's aboriginal scare away call.

thursday night on bribie island there were huge bats in the trees. tom had heard a sad story of someone dying of rabies from a bat so even though they were 2 meters above him, the idea that they were blind, scared him. ok, just one picture... hey, their eyes reflect light. but the flash is too weak. well hey, shining eyes and a black shadow in a tree. good enough.

good friday. zoo number six in three and a half months... this one was really cool: steve irwin's australia zoo. steve irwin was the crocodile hunter who in 2006 died at age 44 from a stingray sting straight into his heart. his zoo is run nowadays by his wife terri and his children bindi (10) and bob (5).

now that this might as well be the last zoo on the trip, let's make a ranking:

6) wellington - a bit shabby, even the kiwi bird had only one leg! (that was not his fault, he was saved from a trap)

5 thru 2 in alphabetical order
* dubbo - 6km track along animals in their natural habitat. inventive ditches make it look like the animals are grazing in the same field where you are. however, it's also so big that if they want to hide, they can!
* mcclelland, adelaide - situated in a national park on the mountain. you get to buy food to feed the kangaroos, emu's etc.
*melbourne - the most interactive and very well stocked. the only platypus ever showing himself
* sydney - on a hill overlooking sydney, best decor. good shows

1) australia zoo - disneyland with wild animals but also, since privately owned, very customer oriented. the only crocs seen so far. fortunately...

there was a croc show in the crocoseum (capacity 5500!) by steve irwin's wife terri including a crocodile doing the death roll. if the prey struggles for long the crocodile rolls over on its back, most probably holding it a bit better under water than before.
also, you could have your picture taken with a steve irwin look-alike holding a real croc. (see below)

allards corner:
as mette and laurian are now walking in a rainforest on fraser island, tom is staying in the bus with allard who is sound asleep. allard has grown to 69 centimeters according to the measuring tape at the gamma-karwei where we bought a new panel for our bed because our backs started to hurt and it's a good investment still almost two months on the road.
allard already sits independently and stands on all fours (hands and knees) but still crawls backwards. he loves standing. he starts smiling when you hold him up on his feet.
his food has increased to two jars per day. one with mashed fruit and one with pasta which his sister volunteers to feed almost equally sharing while doing it.
it took him from sunday to thursday to get used to the end of daylight savings time.
on the way to fraser island he even flirted with two german girls by playing peek-a-boo. he is already a handsome boy!

fraser island is known, amongst others, for its dingo's. they think these descendants of the asian wolve came to australia with indonesian and chinese fishermen 3500 years ago so they're not truly native. the aboriginals would kidnap them as puppies, domesticate them and use them for hunting and as companions - still now a five dog night is the aboriginal expression for a really cold night - but sooner or later they'd go back into nature to mate.
nowadays, even though they look like dogs, dingo's are wild animals. some 30 years ago, a baby disappeared at a campground by alice springs. a dingo was seen nearby and later they only found some of the babyclothes. it's feared the baby was taken away and killed by the dingo.
in 2001 a seven year old boy had disappeared on fraser island and his body was later found eaten by dingo's. in 2004, also on fraser island, a mother found a dingo by her baby in their hotelroom. fortunately no harm was done.
so we were all prepared. we went to this cristal clear lake on fraser island. at the entrance, it had a sign "always stay with your children". (see picture)
tom went swimming with mette and laurian sat at the shore with allard right next to her. tom was facing laurian and allard when he saw a dingo approach on the side where allard was. he called out: "laurian, a dingo, next to you. laurian! a dingo! next to you!". the dingo had approached allard and laurian to about one meter. as fast as she could, laurian grabbed allard and stood up tall. the dingo saw his snackie had just disappeared, hung out a bit aimless and decided to go scavenging elsewhere.
it was a no-fun experience, but everyone was happy that this was all that happened.

you know the saying: that turkey isn't gonna make it to christmas? we've had a travel companion since about a week when we saw this mouse sticking his head out of toms backpack at 10 o'clock at night. we decided to empty the backpack out of the campervan door and laurian saw something running away but either the mouse returned or there were two of them or laurian didn't see a mouse running away at 10 o'clock at night, because since that day there were mouse poops on the kitchen top in the morning. until last night. a trap was set and at 4 in the morning, while everyone was sleeping, only tom woke up when our mouse got smacked and killed trying to feast on white chocolate. strictly speaking, he did make it to easter.

ps mettes quotes:
* hij is weg. hij is weg. hij is denk ik aan het eten. thuis. in de camper/he is gone. he is gone. i think he's eating. at home. in the campervan (about the kookaburra)
* de kleine kazen zijn nog steeds op. die heeft mette gisteren opgegeten/the small cheeses are still finished. mette ate them yesterday (the funny thing was that this wasn't true at all. there were still small cheeses left and no one had told otherwise)
* wat ben je mooi, mama, met je staartje/you're so pretty, mommy, with your pony tail
* die vogeltjes zijn aan het lopen. die willen niet op de schouders/those birds are walking. they don't want to sit on the shoulders (mette's two alternatives of transportation)
* piep zij de muis in het... gloria (mixing up zagen zagen and lang zal ze leven but also in english) mommy called the doctor to come quick quick quick (three little monkeys and miss polly had a dolly) and the most recent: row row row your boat gently down the stream, merrily merrily, merrily, merrily king of the bush is he (the merry king of the bush is aka the kookaburra in the old gum tree)
* hee, wat hoor ik daar in de boom?/hey, what do i hear there in the tree?
* ik ruik kip, ehm... ik ruik een ijsje/i smell chicken, eh... i smell an icecream