Australia - Perth - Under the Sea!

We have been living next to the ocean/river now for about a month and we have spent much of our spare time just staring at it. Well yesterday we decided to go to the AQWA Aquarium to see what went on under the sea. We had an amazing time from the beginning looking at the beautiful and majestic creatures that populate the ocean. The aquarium was phenomenally well done with the animals split up into different categories in different wings of the building. Some of the categories were Danger zone, perth, and stingray bay. We started by looking at some unbelievably beautiful sea-dragons. These creatures look like sea horses but they look like they have strands of seaweed attached to them. At first we couldn't even see them! Next came the most amazing part, an i-don't-know-how-big tank (it was huge) surrounded by a moving belt that you rode through see through tunnels all the way around. In this monster tank were sharks, fish, turtles and stingrays bigger than you! We rode this belt around twice in awe, amazed at all that was going on around us. We saw the bottom of stingrays an arms length away and had sharks staring us straight in the face! There were fish as big as my dog and just the most amazing things! After we needed a few minutes for all of that to settle so we went for milkshakes and fries. Here you even have to pay for ketchup! It's like $1.25! We backtracked from there and hit the danger zone to check out the killers in there. Did you know that puffer fish are deadly to eat? Chefs in Japan have to train for 2-3 years to prepare this delicacy and at the end they have to eat there own food as a test! In that area I had to face my worst fear, water snakes!!!! I took one look at these terrifying snakes and took off shaking. We then saw a place where you could take a magnifying glass up to the tanks and look at things like sea horses, moray eels and clown fish. It's way different up that close! Not much stood out in the next bit but some big tanks full of beautiful jellyfish. After the jellies we headed outside to the touch pool where we could touch the small sting rays and some cool fish. This was my second time touching a ray but nonetheless it was exhilarating. My first time was down in Margaret River when the wild ones were by the shore and I ran in to see them. They have this amazing way of moving where they almost do the worm or fly in the water. When you feel them sometimes they do this on your hand! Their underside is like jelly! There are amazingly friendly animals that seemingly love attention. To get attention they sometimes bring their side out and wave it. After we had enough of that we checked out the two seals at Seal Island. Now those two were cute! They constantly just sped around the water putting on a show for the spectators. You could either watch them from above where they came up every once in a while to breathe. Under you could watch how acrobatic they really are. To finish it off we went to Stingray bay to see what they had there. It was a cute little pond that was filled with rays of all different shapes and sizes but we had to go so we didn't spend long there. All in all it was a worthwhile visit that was phenomenally well done! Now when we look at the river or ocean we'll know a bit more about what's in there. We just need to push the animals of Danger Zone out of our minds when we're swimming!

anna