Sarah's Journey

Giraffe

Giraffe on my horse back safari

Lions at Antelope Park in Zimbabwe

Hi all, just to let you know I have arrived safely in Zimbabwe and have met my first few lions!!!

The ones above are the newest arrivals born on January 19th so not yet 2 months old.. have missed the bottle feeding by a couple of weeks :-( but already trained on preparing their 4 meals a day of mince and warm milk.

My typical day involves an alarm at 5.50!! which if you know me well is a BIG challenge!

At 6.15 we are allocated are first walk of the day .. in my first 6 days I have pretty much walked all the cubs who are old enough to walk and done cub sitting with the others.

Its back for breakfast at 8.30 before the longest shift of the day 9.30 to 12.30 .. today was meat prep for the older cubs .. involving parts of a cow (skin, bones and all), enclosure cleaning and then feeding the cubs, and collecting data on their feeding behaviour. I finished early so was at the poolside by 11.45 :-) before heading into lunch

Started early this afternoon too at 2 instead of 2.30 to prep the babies lunch and then feed them.. spent a couple of hours playing with them before heading back for a final walk with the 10 month old cubs (the oldest we currently walk) and then dinner.

Its not all hard work though .. yesterday I had a full day of horse induction which included an afternoon in the park amongst zebra, wilderbeast, giraffe, and impala to mention a few!

Having a great time.

Sarah

Kuranda with Katrin

The Train and Station

Katrin and I in the Cable Car ...............................

Rainforest from the air

Arriving back in Cairns from the Tablelands I bumped into Katrin .. last seen in Broome on the easy rider tour, and so we headed for the really tourist trip up to Kuranda by Cable Car and then back by Scenic Railway! Apart from the 75 minute bus journey around Cairns to pick up everyone else and wait for them to pay the balances on their trips (Weird Oz way of just paying a deposit when you book a trip????) The actual journeys were the best part of the day as the scenery was stunning. Kuranda itself is unworthy of any photos .. even a digital one as it is purely a shopping centre for tourists .. we managed to avoid the mass of tacky shops although I did get very close to buying a $350!!! opal necklace .. maybe next time!

Attempting Wooffing!

The resident Kangaroo at Springmount

I intended to stay up in the Table lands above Cairns for a weeks wooffing(working in exchange for accomodation, food and horse riding) at Springmount Ranch however only lasted 48 hours! The Farm in itself is a great place if your a guest however as a helper I think I am too old to be told how to cut up a caspian, shut the cutlery draw quitely and prewash every item that went in the dishwasher ... apparently I also cut up vegetables too quickly .. I think there is a difference between being a naive 21 year old doing this and me!!! So I made my excuses and headed back down to cairns.