Australia Zoo, home of Steve Irwin.

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A very early start yesterday morning for a trip we booked and payed for on Monday to catch a courtesy bus to the Australian Zoo, the Zoo that is owned by none other than the legendary Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter. This is something that I have had in the back of mind mind since I stepped foot on that plane in Bangkok towards Australia. The bad thing is, is that when you book to go to the Zoo they refuse to tell you if the man himself is going to be there, so it is completely pot-luck. 8:30am and we jump on a double decker bus with 'Australia Zoo' and a big picture of Steve Irwin on the side. On the journey they played a VHS of Steve's life, he really is a character even since he was 6 and then jumped on his first Crocodile when he was 9 years old, crazy!
The Zoo was about an hour from Noosa on the bus and on arrival after watching the video I was excited but prepared to be dissapointed as to whether Steve would be there?? There were huge pictures of him all over the place and 'Crickey', 'What a beauty' everywhere, not cheesey at all?!
The zoo itself is pretty big covering 75 acres of land and due for a 48million dollar expansion in progress at the moment. There was a itenary of shows throughout the day in the 'croc-a-seum' which started at 11am, so as you do with zoos we just walked around admiring the animals, in particular the huge 175 year old tortouise Harriet, that's old!!!
Walking around was becoming increasingly difficult as the almost unbearable mid-day heat was peaking at 33 degrees, seriously hot for carrying bags and wearing thick shorts and t-shirts. At 10:30am we had the option of feeding a huge indian elephant with fruit so we took part in that, leaving us to have elephant slobber all over our fingers, lovely!
At 11am everyone packed into the 'croc-a-seum' for the first of the shows, the snake show. Steve Irwin was nowhere to be seen and the animals looked as if all they wanted to do was be lazy because of the incredible heat. The other shows were free flight birds, tigers and finally the crocodiles, but none of the animals wanted to do anything and when the keepers were talking about them they all mentioned how they 'normally do this' and 'usually do that', but not today!! ah well, was pretty cool anyway.
The main highlight was the Kangaroo heaven section, where we could go right up to them and pat them, which was really amazing. We also were able to pat a Koala, which was cool but we all want to hug one so maybe another time!?! The final show was the Cheetahs, but again they just looked over heated and lazy, but I managed to capture one drinking from the pool and then looked directly at me with her slightly worried and encapsulated eyes through the glass.
We were all now uncomfortably hot and wanted to jump on the bus in order to jump in the pool at the hostel to refresh ourselves. However this turned into a pipe-dream as the bus pulled away without us after I stupidly bought a postcard leading us to miss the bus and have 3 hour journey home... lets me just say there was a bit of tention in the ranks. But as we have been together for over 5 months now this was probably the closet we have come to arguing, but it was just silent for a few hours. We chilled at the hostel bar that night and had food there too as the kitchen facilities are pathetic.
Today has been cloudy all day but still very warm so we have simply sat in the pool most of the day. Tonight there is a Live band on lead by a local hero Carl Lynch who is supposedly a bit like Jack Johnson so hopefully that will be good.

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Photos

Cheetah.
As she stares directly into my lens she has a enclosed look in her eyes.