Cee’s Oddball Photo Challenge
Australia #11
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone. Hope you have fun today!
Leanne Cole and her friend Suzanne took Carol and me to Healesville Sanctuary to get a closer look at wild animals in Australia.
Some of the critters there were just there to look good and have fun. They smiled constantly.
When in Rome, do what the Romans do, correct? So this is what the Aussie Romans did.
It looks like fun, don’t you think?
I did not want to get on the lizard. Way too slippery and high! Trust me, stabilization shoes do not do a thing for you when you are sitting on a polished statue. Not even this friendly platypus budged an inch to help us stay on!
And did you see his mischievous little smile?
For more oddball posts check out Cee’s place.
Related Australia Posts
- Healesville Sanctuary-Kangaroos-Koalas-and-Crazy-Pelicans
- #1 Australia Gold Rush
- #2 Melbourne’s Walk in the Park Tour: Treasury Gardens
- #3 Flying from Melbourne to Toowoomba
- #4 How Do You Use the Bathroom in Australia
- #5 How Do You Justify Pavlova for Breakfast?
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Marsha Ingrao - Always Write 
20 responses to “Smile Good Lookin’”
[…] Smile Good Looking #11 […]
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That is quite a lovely komodo dragon at the beginning there! Precious animals, absolutely darling. Apparently, they have begun to slightly infest the swamps of Florida, along with the occasional Nile crocodile. The giant pythons, I am sure, are happy about the company. Most gruntling.
Cute platy, by the way!
Trust you had a grand Valentine’s.
All the best,
toad
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What are they doing in FL? Do people import them as pets, then let them go? I’m not sure I’d enjoy chortling around in your waters! 🙂 🙂
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Har har have you seen them featured in the new BBC Planet Earth II? Narrated by the grand Attenborough, but of course.
I just love them and their long forked tongues, meal-metal-tough skin, and their shark-tooth-sharpened mouths 😉 SO cute. Goodness, can they run. Much higher-energy than the shy alligators here in the lazy swamps of FL with those gentle tea-stained eyes batting serenely up at you from ink-blot reflections.
Another one of my favourite reptiles was featured in the series- the marine iguana. I would die absolutely elated if it was while watching those little iguanas…they are absolutely precious…GORGEOUS footage of them…ugh…
Bah, with me as your guide, WHAT could possibly go wrong? Us, chortling through the tropical jungles of Florida, sounds like a glorious plot to me.
Yes, silly humans somehow lost track of a few of them some years ago. I have no idea what it is with Floridians and reptiles and the constant loss of said reptiles. They lost monkeys off of a movie set some decades ago, too, beautiful macaques. I have seen them in the silver springs, little monkeys in the morning mist, pale eyes peering through mossy garland, munching and chattering from the yawning limbs of the scraggly live oaks overlooking the swirling, lucid waters.
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You do run into interesting finds. I need to keep my eyes on the lookout here in CA. Surely there is something of interest here. I saw a large black cat on the street in front of the neighbors looking interested in nibbling Puppy Girl for a quick snack. May have been a mountain lion. Not sure. I went in quickly with my wispy prey.
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That sounds very interesting, indeed! Perhaps a dark bobcat? Be wonderful if it were a cougar…we have around 200 left of a subspecies in the wild here, the FL panther. Bit smaller, sleeker, thinner fur, rustier-coloured fur. I have seen their tracks. Only. So far.
Good idea about whisking PG away! Spooky.
I met a fine-featured cousin of mine out in the boggy wilderness last night, and thought of you. No photographic evidence, though.
It was a blustery night and the little quaggy forest was a tango of groaning trees and sailing branches. Sir scoffed…”You are NOT going to find any frogs in there tonight, too WINDY! No fireflies either! And no stargazing either, look at those clouds!”
“Oh really??” I said, ignoring him and starting down the trail, nearly getting blow over in the process.
He muttered behind me, something about how silly it was to go hiking through tornadoes at night or some such nonsense.
Suddenly, as we got into the denser part of the wilderness, we found ourselves surrounded by lemony flashes of bioluminescence. I rattled a tree. More fireflies spilled forth. I looked at Sir, my smirk probably illuminated by all the fireflies. Sir said, “Well, NO WAY are you going to find frogs, they’ll be hiding!”
We walked on. The ground got soggier and there came a sound chiming above the din of clattering trees and howling wind.
“What’s that???” I asked Sir.
“Crickets..”
Suddenly, I hopped into the mire, prancing from limp and drowning branch to limp and drowning branch. Occasionally, I spilled right into the bilge because I am an oaf.
I finally found a perching place amongst the glittering sloshlands, an old rotting slab of boardwalk that had been long discarded and pitched away. I settled in and stared up at the yammering branches that occasionally screeched queerly like dying birds.
Then, I heard something else.
Plunk! Plunk, plunk!
I switched on my LED torch and caught sight of some movement.
PLONK!
A splash and then, clambering up through a tangle of dead branches was…
Can you guess?
A frog.
A beautiful vaguely-speckled greenish-grey tree frog, a pinewoods treefrog to be exact, had hopped right up to me to investigate. He looked up with sagely golden eyes.
Well, well.
I bugled for Sir. Sir had clomped off somewhere so I and frog waited. I switched off the light and watched the alluring amphibian in the flashes of blue moonlight that spilled through the trees as clouds hurried by. It was a noir moment.
Sir finally arrived and I switched the light back on while he griped and complained about sinking and dying in the swamp, some rubbish about death by quick sand (that only occasionally happens, sheesh) and generally protested approach while I just kept telling him it was a frog of a lifetime and to hurry up and so on.
I showed the frog to Sir, even patted the fine amphibian on the head. Sir, as usual, was flabbergasted. The toad in me croaked with delight.
After a few moments, the tree frog decided to hop right up to Sir, as if on cue, for a closer look. He just stared and stared.
Eventually, we had to unglue ourselves from the moment and head back. As we made it out into the sandy brush lands toward the road, I pointed skyward. Sir looked up. The clouds had been cleared from the darkest part of the sky and a spray of stars sprinkled down. We could see the light of Orion and Betelgeuse glittering through the atmosphere.
Well, well. Fireflies, frogs and stars, just as I had prescribed.
Sir shook his head.
He never learns.
😉
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Poor Sir. He has the patience of Job. I hope you had enough light to take pictures. I imagine you should come back and cut and paste this into your blog as the start of a magnificent froggy post. 🙂
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No photos, I fear, just the memory remains. 😀 Sir does suffer so…I fear he also walked into a tree after we found a slumbering lizard. I shone the light right onto the tree and just before I was about to mention it, THWACK…then Sir “Ooooooooo there was a TREE right in the middle of the path??” Meanwhile, he scared the sleeping lizard away…poooor poor Sir…
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I agree, poor Sir. He always manages to come out so poorly on these outings. I marvel that he still agrees to go on them with you. 🙂
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What fun photos you have! What big smiles you have! Fun and smile, best things in life, Marsha!!
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I agree! It was a great trip! 🙂
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That’ wonderful! I can tell!
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What’s your favorite trip?
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My favorite trip is a family of 7 on a private tour to China. It’s not easy to get many people in the family from different schedules to go on a family vacation!
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Wow, that is very cool! It is not easy to get two retired people to adjust their schedules in our family! 🙂 Amazing to get 7! 🙂 Thanks for the comment. 🙂
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I know. My husband is just retired. It’s hard for us to plan for a trip also, Well, at least we are going to see our daughter and her hubby in March. Got one trip planned!!
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And a good time was had by all, by the looks of it 😊
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We had so many laughs! 🙂
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Cool photos. Thanks ever so much for participating.
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Of course, my friend. I love your challenges. 🙂
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