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Published: September 5th 2012
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My day two started early once again. This day I would be heading up to the Australia Zoo, near Beerwah and the Glass House Mountains. The zoo was started by Steve Irwin’s father, who evidently collected crocodiles and snakes that people wanted removed from their land. With a decently large collection he decided maybe he could make a few dollars and educate people. I remember his name being Bob Irwin, so that is what I’ll call him. Bob was part of the show and would work hands on with the crocs, late in life he decided that he was a step too slow and turned the family business over to Steve, who I am certain you are all familiar with. I am here visiting on the month of his death six years ago. The park is a shrine to Steve, there are rides, plaques, statues and all kinds of pictures of him still up. It is great to see him honored in such a way.
I tried to catch as many of the shows as I could, the croc show, the tiger show, feeding of the elephants, and the koala show. The highlight of my day was petting
a cheetah though. Omaha has the top zoo in the US, with heaps of different animals, including about six cheetahs, they are by far my favorite. I have always had the answer to the question, “if you could be any animal?” My answer is cheetah. So there was the opportunity for different animal encounters that one can pay for, I elected to spend some time with two juvenile cheetahs. I took away a great 8x10 of me with one of them, I was super excited. The koalas were great too, I loved petting them, they are lazy and adorable all I wanted to do was hold one. Kangaroos were pretty boring, but it was very cool just to see how friendly they are and how happy they are to be pet and fed by a group of people. I really wish our zoo was more interactive now after seeing this, the staff did a great job of speaking about conservation and protecting all animals, not just the cute ones. After a full day of seeing all kinds of different animals, most native to the area such as the Tasmanian Devils and Kookaburras, I was ready for the van ride home
and short relaxing evening.
Once home I took a shower and had a quick nap. Around 8:00 I went out to dinner and elected for fish and chips at a place called Gilhooley’s. There was a band playing and I had a couple of beers with dinner, the waitress thought my accent was cute and chatted me up for a bit. I headed back a little after an hour later, my flight was leaving at 7:00 am for Cairns, so I had to get up around 5:00 am.
As luck would have it there was a bachelor party going on in the room next to mine, and they were quick to invite me in, insisting that “you have to see this.” I normally don’t turn down invitations while on holiday, but this lot was pretty drunk and the entertainment that would be showing up momentarily wasn’t what I was in the mood for. Evidently shortly after I went to bed management must have told them to quiet down or get out because things became peaceful and I was able to get some much needed sleep.
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