CRIKEY! It's the zoo!

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My last day in Brisbane it rained. It’s starting to look like a pattern. So that meant I didn’t get to go to either the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary or the Mt. Coot-tha Reserve. Instead I spent the day at the library, doing internet related things, and then went back to the hostel where I spend several hours talking to other backpackers on the veranda, including a guy from South Korea who says that he’ll meet me in February and show me around.

I checked out fairly early Saturday morning. Not early enough to be on time, however, but early none-the-less. I was meeting Simon in the city centre that morning and he was taking me, along with his girlfriend Lauren and another one of his traveling friends, Lea, to the Australia Zoo for the day. Simon and I met last summer while traveling in Nepal. We took the bus together from the jungle to the city and ate lunch together before parting ways. But we managed to stay in touch. He lives in Toowoomba, just a couple hours west of Brisbane.

The Australia Zoo was Steve Irwin’s pet project prior to his death. A large majority of the animals are problem animals rescued from other zoos and sanctuaries, and the displays are nearly exclusively of Australia wildlife. In the next seven to ten years the zoo wants to expand to include an African campus as well as a North and South American campus. It isn’t like an ordinary zoo. Animals wander around in semi-natural habitats and are accustomed to human interaction, which means that visitors are allowed to get up close and personal with the creatures. I got to pet reptiles and koalas and even got to hug a red kangaroo. Though it might look small on the map, the four of us spent a good five hours at the zoo, seeing everything except the emus, and only because the zoo closed before we got there.

Simon’s mother lives about half an hour from the zoo in a small town called Maleny. From Maleny’s tallest point you can see the strip of beach that stretches from Maroochydore to Mooloolaba to Calloudra and beyond, collectively known as the Sunshine Coast. At night you can see the hotel lights and the barge lights bright along the coast. We spent the night in Maleny, having tea with his mom and step-dad and having dinner at the restaurant his younger brother works at. We didn’t last long at the pool-hall after dinner. We were all too tired from a long day of walking and packed it in before 11:00pm.

After breakfast the next morning (cereal and Simon’s “famous” eggs), Lauren and Simon took Lea, who’s Swiss, and I to Montville, a little village known mostly for its candy and chocolate shops. We spent the afternoon walking around, eating free samples and looking at coo-coo clocks and antique lamps. Before it got too dark we went to Kondalilla Park to see a waterfall Simon had been taking about. It was two kilometers downhill to the base of the falls, where we found a group of American boys scaling the rocks. Once all of us camera fanatics (Simon takes professional grade photographs and Lea takes it seriously on an amateur level) had taken enough pictures of the rock pools and the falls, we started the two kilometer trek back up. But not until I had a leach attach itself to me for the second time in my life. None of us had salt or a lighter, so Lauren helped me rip if off because I was too squimmish to do it myself. It didn’t hurt, but it sure did bleed.

Lea and I went back with Simon to Toowoomba that night because it was late and we didn’t know what else to do. We had to be out of the house when Simon went to work though, so he dropped us off in the shopping district that morning. Lea was going to catch the bus at 1:00pm to go to Minden where she is staying with a family and Simon was going to meet me for lunch before helping me check into a motel for the night. Originally Simon had said that I could spend a few nights at his home, but it turns out that he rents a room from an older woman and she doesn’t like people in her space, so I couldn’t stay more than one night. He felt so guilty about it that he paid for me to stay at a motel in town. I’m going to see him in January, when I come back to Brisbane to fly out.

Lea is making her way up to Cairns this week. I decided that morning that I would go with her part of the way. Tuesday morning we’re meeting in Brisbane to go together to Rainbow Beach. Wednesday morning we’re going just a little farther north to Hervey Bay. Thursday morning she’s going up even farther to Townsville and I’m going to start heading south again to visit Noosa. Hopefully after that I can actually start WWOOFing.

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Photos

crocodiles
conservation presentation at the "Crocoseum"

red kangaroos
the kangaroos were friendly enough that you could pet them

group shot
this would have been a great photo if the kangaroo hadn't bailed half way through