Crikey, the Australian Zoo!

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Echidna

We were up early to drive ourselves down to the Australia Zoo for 9am. In case you didn't know The Australia Zoo is Steve Irwin's zoo, he and his family own and operate it. It started out as a small reptile farm owned by his parents. It's now a massive zoo with all kinds of Australian animals and a few other animals from around the world. Since Steve died in 2006 his family has turned the zoo into a bit of a memorial to him. As you enter there are a few keepers with some animals that you can touch and get pictures with. There was a cockatoo, a snake and even a dingo out for a walk. Mom and I touched the snake and met the cockatoo.

At the entrance is a bronze statue of the whole Irwin family. There are pretty big lizards just wandering around the park freely and on the sidewalks. It's pretty cool. We saw some HUGE turtles munching away and some camels out for a walk. One of the first things you can do is hand feed an elephant. They have some asian elephants they bring around and you line up and you can feed the elephant and get a picture taken. Since I had already done this in Thailand it wasn't nearly as exciting but still cool. Mom and dad fed the elephant too.

It was then time to go to the Crocoseum for the main show of the day. It's a big outdoor theatre with seating all around and in the middle is a tunnel where they bring in a crocodile. The pictures explain this better. They do some demonstrations with the crocodile, snakes, birds that fly in on command which is pretty cool! It was a really well put together show. They picked dad to volunteer with 3 other people in the crowd to stand up and a bird was going to fly up onto their arms. But first they had to do a bird call and a dance. They released the birds when they were doing their dance and bird call but it was all just a joke haha. Dad looked quite silly but he had fun and they gave him a magazine about the zoo for free.

We headed into the kangaroo area afterwards and saw the echidna. They are like a porcupine over here. They are so freaking adorable and we got to see one walking around his enclosure, sooooo darn adorable! I took a video of it for you. I bought some feed for the kangaroos and we got to hand feed some roo's. They are quite gentle and very soft. They will let you pet them happily while you feed them.

There is a lot of Steve Irwin/Crocodile hunter paraphernalia around to look at from his start as the crocodile hunter. He was a pretty fascinating guy who definitely had a passion for all kinds of animals. He had quite an enthusiasm for life. It's a real tragedy he is gone. We walked around some more and found the dingo's enclosure, the cassowaries and the koala's. After lunch we hopped on a free tram they have that goes around to other parts of the zoo. We caught it to the other end where the asian animals were. We lucked out and saw the cheetah out for it's walk. beautiful animal! The red panda's were next and quite possibly the cutest things in the world.

We got to the tiger enclosure just in time for the tiger show. The trainers were in with the tigers as it was playtime. The trainer would throw the toy into the water pool and the tiger would just leap into the water. They are by far one of my favorite animals. After getting to hug a big tiger in Thailand I really appreciate their size and power and just how magnificent these animals are. It was great fun to watch them play for a bit.

We walked through another koala are and got to pat a koala on it's butt while it was sleeping. They look like little ewoks and I love them soooo much! They are so adorable. We went through another kangaroo area as well and saw a joey drinking form it's mom's pouch. These kangaroos were a bit bigger then the other ones. We saw some more birds and a wombat which I think looks like a hairy pig haha. We made it back to the crocoseum in time for the birds of prey show. These birds are amazing at listening to commands which always blows me away. One of the BIG birds came out and he was so jumping on and off a log, quite funny.

We were zooed out by the end but did stop into the animal hospital they have on sight. Steve set it up to rescue and help animals in need. It's like a full on real hospital with all the kinds of equipment you'd expect in a human hospital. We didn't see any sick animals except for one bird who plucked his own feathers out and one sick koala.

On our drive back to Noosaville we stopped in at the famous Ettamogha pub. There was a really famous cartoon about a pub in Australian newspapers starting way back in the 1960's I think and they decided to build this pub from the cartoon. It's a very odd looking building and very much cartoony. We stopped in for a drink and we got to take a picture behind the bar pouring a pint, something I feel very comfortable doing now! There is a trail of the cartoons from when they first started to when they ended all over the pub. For those of you who forgot I did some work for Ettamogha when I worked in Melbourne. I was working for the entertainment side of things where they were doing an animation show for tv.

Another great day in our adventure and we finished it off by getting some take away dinner from down along the river. Beautiful setting with tons of restaurants but most were way out of our price range so takeaway it was.

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Comments

[anonymous]

Love the photos of animals at the zoo, esp you and your little roo :)

[Campervan Rental]

Really very interesting post !!