Of Coffee and Kangaroos

Over the weekend I needed a bit of time to recharge from the constant running-around that was Sydney, so I pretty much holed up in my flat. Luckily it’s nice and airy, so I didn’t feel too isolated from the world! The weather was gorgeous (but chilly), so as a compromise I spent a lot of time in my bed, watching the world through my glass wall. J Saw lots of kangaroos that way!

I did go for a short walk around the facility, but there isn’t much up here (read: five buildings). There are some really nice trails apparently, but there are quite a lot of them all over the place, so I didn’t want to hike solo until I knew where I was going! Today (my first day in the office) I had a good chat with the grad student who first showed me around, Tiantian. She spends a lot of time outside, and she offered to go on a walk with me this weekend if the weather’s nice, so that I can get a feel for the paths. She said that most of them are dirt roads, a precaution against the bushfires that are extremely dangerous in the summer—one nearly destroyed the observatory in 2003.

Tiantian is super nice, and she actually did some research for Dave (my advisor) back when he was in Hawaii, so she’s excited to see him when he gets here! She taught me about Australian coffee, which is good enough that the Australian branch of Starbucks wasn’t able to survive and declared bankruptcy a few years back. Although the coffee tradition is supposed to have been brought by Italian immigrants, Australians have come up with their own drinks as well; Tiantian made me a flat white, which is similar to a latte.

She also said that there’s a nature reserve nearby (30 minute drive), where they even have platypus and koalas! Of course, they can be hard to spot, but you’ve got a better chance there than anywhere else around here. We’re hopefully going to go up there sometime. She did mention that this is a great time of year to visit because all the snakes are gone for the winter and therefore I’m less likely to die. Since we’re a bit in the wilderness here, dangerous snakes aren’t uncommon at all; one morning last summer she opened her front door and there was a brown snake rearing its head at her—the second-most venomous land snake in the world!

This morning was totally different from the weekend, weather-wise; I walked outside into a world of mist. On my way to the office the fog was quite thick, so I couldn’t make out much except for the silhouettes of three or four kangaroos! A little eerie but also pretty cool—how many people walk through a troop of kangaroos on their way to work?

Anyway, I can’t get over how adorable they are, so I’m sharing a video I took over the weekend. They look very alert, which Tiantian says is due to their shortsightedness, but they aren’t especially skittish—I walked within about 10 yards of one this morning, and it didn’t move at all!

UPDATE: new mommy kangaroo in the rain video!! I actually wasn't looking where I was going because it was raining and I almost walked right into these two...