Cairns Tropical Zoo

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Thu 10th Jul

Today we decided to visit Cairns Tropical Zoo. We won't bore you with every last detail of the day, but some of the highlights were:
- The amazing cockatoos and parrots; one in particular was shown off in the 'free flight' demonstration, where he performed a variety of tricks. At the end, to raise money for the maintenance of the zoo, he would take coins offered by people as they left, and swiftly place them in a slot in a donation box!
- Cuddling a koala; and also visiting the maternity section of the koala house, where there were several babies just being as cute as it is possible for anything to be.
- Feeding the wallabies (food provided by the zoo!), and stroking them too. They were surprisingly approachable.
- A parrot who wanted nothing other than the back of his neck to be scratched. He just followed you around until you did it!
- Discovering that the 'weird birds' we saw in Sydney were actually Ibises, and seeing one frighten the c**p out of a 3 year old when he turned around to find one staring him in the face, and swiftly found himself on his bum!

In the evening, went into Cairns and had a very ncie Indian meal. Did a little shopping. Walked back. On the way, we saw a helicopter on the helipad by the esplanade. We waited a while to watch it take off, about 100 metres from us. Windy!

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