Australia Zoo

Well guys, we can now confirm, SHE IS REAL !!

Bindi Irwin is a living, breathing person. And she’s terrifying.

Since Lee and I got back from Cairns, our touristy activities have taken a bit of a back seat to working and saving so there has not been too much to write about. Lee has also been working weekends for a friend at the Botanic Gardens Café in Brisbane to get a bit of extra cash, so our weekends have been somewhat restricted as well. It has, however, allowed me to become an Aussie Rules fan and watch the games all weekend. Brisbane Lions play in maroon and white so it kinda takes my mind off the sorry state of my beloved Hearts back home. The Lions got horsed the other night by Sydney Swans, some things never change.

Anyway, I digress, last weekend we had a rare day off together so we arranged to make the compulsory pilgrimage to Beerwah, and kneel at the altar of Steve Irwin at Australia Zoo. Tracey’s pal Roxy drove us up there at 8 in the morning so that we could maybe beat the crowds but what we hadn’t banked on was that this particular Sunday was the last day of the kids Easter hollybags, it meant that a good number of other folk had decided to make the trip as well so it was busy by the time got up there.

We’ve been to plenty zoos on our travels so far but this is a bit different, we’ve been watching the Crocodile Diaries on TV for ages now so it’s a bit weird to get up there and know the names of the crocs before you’ve even got in there, still it was still a great experience to actually see the place first hand. It has by far the smallest number of animals of any zoo that we have been to, but the animals they do have are housed in exhibits that mean you can, in many cases, walk about with them, approach them and lie down beside them and get your photo taken, as our photos of us and Skippy testify. Staff walk around the park with baby crocs for you to touch and Koalas to say hi to, it’s all really interactive (the way Steve wanted it apparently, gawd bless ‘im, sniff). They own 500 acres of land there and currently use 73 of them, the plans for the place are impressive to say the least and include a Cheetah’s race track, so that you can see them running at full pelt instead of sat under a log in a 20’ x 10” box a la Edinburgh.

The centrepiece of Australia Zoo, though, is The Crocoseum, a purpose built crocodile display stadium that was Steve’s dream for many years and is now up and running. It’s a proper stadium too, better than Easter Road but not as good as Tynecastle basically. We took our seats for the 11.30 show half an hour early to beat the rush and have a look at what we could expect. The plan was to have a display of snakes, birds and then, of course, the crocs. What they neglected to tell us was that before we got to the animals, we’d have to sit through 45 minutes of the greatest hits of Bindi Irwin, in her final show, as it was the last day of the holidays. To cut a veeeeery long story short, Bindi and her group of dancers, 4 completely heterosexual guys in bright yellow t-shirts called The Crocmen, danced and sang their way across a spectrum of zoo and jungle animals. We were treated to Go Bananas, Soar Like An Eagle and, of course, everyone’s favourite, When The Hippo Moves Her Hips. Brought a tear to your eye so it did. If that wee girl ain’t in rehab by the time she’s 15 then I’ll start supporting Hibs !!

It’s pretty spectacular watching a croc close up. Again, because of the last day of the holidays, the crocodile show was put on by Terri Irwin and Steve’s mate Wes, who everyone should remember form the TV show, with their 3 year old son Bob watching in the stands. They bring a crocodile out into the stadium and proceed to wade into the water with strips of beef hanging from their hands; this allows you to see them trying to jump out the water and getting fed close-up. It was happening about 20 feet in front of where we were sitting so we got a cracking view. The next trick they have up their sleeve is to show everyone the death roll. You throw a horse’s leg or something of that ilk on a rope, into the water, let the croc grab it and then pull on the rope. It basically drags the thing into the water and proceeds to roll over and over. It’s pretty neat.

Once you have seen the show, as you walk out from the stands, there is a memorial area to Steve Irwin where you can go and have a look at the thousands of khaki shirts that were sent in with condolences, paintings that were sent, collages of photographs, newspaper clippings, flowers and even a surfboard that was sent in covered in signatures and messages of sympathy for the family. It brings a wee lump to your throat to be honest. The memorial isn’t signposted or surrounded by pictures of the guy leaping off a truck like the rest of the zoo so it’s a nice understated, quiet area of the place. It’s really well done.

Oh right, there’s something I’ve left out here. Before the big Bindi Irwin and the Completely Heterosexual Crocmen show, they have these guys whose job it is to come out and warm the crowd up (seriously) and they do the usual divide-the-audience-down-the-middle thing that is standard fare at any self-respecting Pantomime and told us all that we would be doing animal impressions. Let joy be unconfined !!!! Anyway, our side of the stadium were to be monkeys so the boy gives it the old 3-2-1 routine and lo and behold, then next thing I know, Lee and Roxy are on the chairs shrieking and screaming (and not sounding unlike the real thing I have to admit) and waving the arms about. Ranger Bob or whatever his name is clocks the pair of them straight away and announces that they have won a free photograph with one of the zoos Koalas. He then proceeds to get them to do it again, for the benefit of those who never saw it the first time, this time with the whole crowd other than Lee and Roxy sitting down and watching them on the stadium’s big screen. It was also witnessed by Terri and the whole family. Scotland salutes you, girls!!

One other rather disturbing side to the show is that, while recently widowed Terri and her three year old son and 9 year old daughter sat in the stand, they had to endure this guy in a Steve Irwin mascot’s costume running around the arena waving at the crowds, apparently “keeping the dream alive” for all the kids. Can you imagine being a three year old boy who’s just lost his Dad, and seeing him miraculously brought back to life by the magic of Styrofoam and bouncing past you??? You’d have nightmares wouldn’t you??

Our last trip around the Brisbane area is down to Girraween National Park a week on Friday so that will be our final Brisbane blog but here will be plenty more to follow in the next few weeks.

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