My last full day in Perth was kind of a free-for-all. I didn’t want to do anything too taxing because I had an early domestic flight the next day for the next city on my itinerary. So my godmother decided we’d visit the riverside, the aquarium, and the zoo while the sun was up, and at sundown I planned on treating my godmother and her husband to a very nice dinner out.

The visit to the riverside was mostly so I could see a black swan, which is the official bird of Western Australia. When we got there, a man was feeding them sliced bread, so they were everywhere. As a result, I managed to get a ton of shots of Australian black swans, pelicans, ducks, and sea gulls. This is only one of those shots:

Afterwards, we went to the aquarium, where I couldn’t quite get a good picture of a leafy sea dragon, so I’ll post this from the aquarium instead:

Then we went to the Perth zoo, where I saw even more kangaroos and strange birds. I didn’t really feel like taking pictures of any non-Australian creatures, and I already had a ton of kangaroo shots, so I tried to stick to the paths in the Australian Wetlands section.

Here’s a shot of a Jabiru (black-necked stork) from there:

Now, this was supposed to be my take-it-easy day, but I ended up walking all over the place and hurting my feet because I lost track of my godmother who said she would stay put in one place while I grabbed a few more shots, but when I immediately came back, she was gone for at least half an hour casually dining in a cafe without telling me, so I must have searched the entire zoo and parking lot looking for her. Word to the wise, when in Australia where it’s hot and dry, try not to overexert yourself with a lot of unneccessary walking … and if possible, get your godmother a working cell phone or a GPS tracking device.

After having a cherry slushie, a bottle of water, and an ice cream bar, I was upgraded to hot, tired, sweaty, and irritable.

So I had to shower again and nap a little before dinner, and after dinner and some packing, I was knocked out for the night, feet throbbing like crazy—which was not a good thing because I planned to do a lot of walking at my next stop.

Yeah, and here it is, my next stop: I was flying to Uluru, otherwise known as Ayers Rock.

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