This past weekend was honestly, INCREDIBLE! I would say the overall theme was…. animals, but really different animals.  We visited a zoo on Saturday and a seahorse and platypus well on Sunday. I had the chance to see some great Tasmanian animals and learn so much more about their lifestyle.

The zoo is about a five-minute drive from ‘my’ house. Ashley’s mom, Rachel, dropped us off and together we walked around in the hot sun on a self-guided tour. There were plenty of birds, all from Tasmania and very colourful. There were also, emus, lambs, sheep, alligators, monkeys, wild dogs and my personal favourites, kangaroos and a Tasmanian devil!! The kangaroos were especially cute; we had the chance to feed them and the next thing we knew they were following us and jumping around to go wherever we were going. The Tasmanian devil is a whole other story. I don’t know what I was really expecting but I must say it was adorable. It kind of looked like a tiny black bear. While we were observing it, an employee was feeding it a wallaby bone, which was actually a little disturbing. Although it seemed like a lot of animals to me, the zoo actually had a limited number because of some policies that made it difficult for them to receive and cage animals in their zoo.

Sunday was very exciting as we went to Beauty-Point to see platypus and seahorse wells. We also had the chance to see echidnas, which were actually just crawling around as we walked into their room. The seahorse and platypus well was really interesting because I got to learn about their habitat, diet, genetics, class and so much more. I was even given the chance to hold a seahorse!

Anyway, this was another amazing weekend and I honestly can’t believe how quickly my trip is going by. —Leah Salzman ’15