Taadaaaa! Second Month-y-versary. Man, time flies (except when you are waiting on the bike).

We hadn’t planned anything special for today but were super lucky because Liz and Borja asked us if we wanted to tag along to Berry Springs. These springs are a bit outside of Darwin, maybe 50 or 60km. Without a bike we have no easy means of making it there. So of course, we said yes.

On the way there, Liz was reading up on the Territory Wildlife Park which is around the corner. The feeding of the stingrays was announced to be at 1.10pm and she really wanted to go. Again, we tagged along and so all four of us went into the wildlife park.

A train thingy! Tshoo-tshoo!

A little train is going around in circles in the park, transporting visitors to different stops with different attractions. Flo and I hopped out at the Monsoon Forest Walk to attend the Forest Frenzy at 1.10pm while Liz and Borja went to see the stingrays. We decided to meet up again at 2pm on the Flight Deck to watch the Nature Display of the big, predatory birds.

The Monsoon Walk itself was lovely and we saw quite some birds. The first station was a simulation of the rain during the wet season. For the birds on display here, I really liked the crimson finches which were intensely red in the sunshine. Some of them were having a bath when we watched. So cute! It also was the first time we managed to see a kingfisher. We, then, had to hurry a bit to make it to the feeding.

“I am a tree” … “You can’t see me”

Many pigeons and lorakeets attended the feeding as well as black birds that would swoop down to catch meal worms out of the air (they were being thrown…obviously, worms can’t fly). My absolute favorite bird was Mumbles, the tawny frogmouth. She was sitting only inches away from us, waiting until it was her turn to be shown and explained. She’s a bit of an odd case as she’s a runt and has been trained to be okay with daylight despite being a nocturnal bird. The only defense mechanism that frogmouths employ is to try and look like a branch from above. Mumbles demonstrates this nicely.

Flo and I decided to walk to the flight deck instead of taking the train. This lead to us having to hurry a bit which in turn caused all my insect bites to itch like hell in the sun and heat. I was very much looking forward to cooling them later on.

Ranger and a cool owl

The flight show was amazing. The ranger showed us a buzzard that is smart enough to use stones to crack open emu eggs, a large stork that lives in the Northern Territory and a bird of prey that emerges itself into water in order to catch fish. So awesome.

Afterwards, we visited the nocturnal house where we saw another tawny frogmouth, a small nocturnal wallaby and other very cute looking animals. The bats had just been fed and were hanging next to their fruit kebabs.

*lol* The crocodile was very passive even in the face of a small child

Another stop at the aquarium to check out the crocodiles and fish before heading off to Berry Springs. Getting there, the springs turned out to be a bit of a disappointment and we were glad that we had spent so much time in the wildlife park. One of the pools was closed off to the public, the other one was quite full and the water rather murky so that snorkeling didn’t make much sense and we had just one swim before heading back to Darwin. The other not so nice thing was a health warning about the water, so you weren’t supposed to put your head into it.

Back at Darwin, Celia and Tig had a little pool party going which we joined after a short nap.