Crikey!

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A free bus arrived in Noosa to take us to Australia Zoo a family who hadn't prebooked seats were forced to wait to see if there were any spaces. They included about the only children in the group & they managed to squeeze on in the end. The special extended version of Steve Irwins life story was playing on the bus refamiliarising us with classic Irwinisms such as 'Woo Hoo', 'Isn't She a Beauty' & 'Sweating Bullets'. The extended version meant we didn't get to see it all before we were at the zoo.
The first animal we saw was a water monitor crossing our path, these critters were all over the zoo & they were pretty tame too. Australia Zoo has the oldest animal in captivity, a large land tortoise from the Galapagos called Harriett which in the nineteenth century small children could ride around on top of her shell. Not exactly a white knuckle ride so that's probably why Steve introduces his kids to the crocs for a bit of a scare.
Having checked out some of Australia's indigenous animals & a burmese python who looked like he had eaten about three people for breakfast, we moved onto the Crocoseum. Just past the gates we saw Steve Irwin practicing some kung fu moves on another member of staff, but no animals were hurt in the incident.
The Crocoseum is a large stadium with a central pool surrounded by grass & a big screen at the end. Having sat opposite one of video cameras we weren't that suprised to see ourselves ten feet tall on the screen giving a rather embarrassed wave to everyone. After lots of Hollywood hype & announcements out came the tigers who leapt in the air for treats thrown by their keepers. Once they were out of the way & the safety nets removed, in came the parrots who flew amongst the audience & sometimes out of the Crocoseum for quite some time.
Next were the snakes, it was more of a lesson on what you should do should you come across them in the wild, but as it was a hot day they were pretty active & the python decided to have a swim. It was fished out just before it slid between the bars leading to the hungry crocodiles - now that would have been a show!
When the crocodiles did come out they were BIG & HUNGRY. A demonstration of their ambushes on prey then ensued, in this case the prey was the odd rat and plenty of chickens. The crocs would shoot out onto bank whenever a keeper got too close to edge with food & at one point the croc jumped vertically out of the water to snap at some food hanging overhead. A good lesson why you don't dangle your legs over water near a crocodiles habitat.
Steve didn't actually come out in the Crocoseum as he was too busy with the expansion of the zoo & kicking his staff. Currently the zoo is about 70 acres but it is being expanded to 340 acres accommodating a ape island & all sorts of other themed areas.
Once we had been round the rest of the zoo, seen the kangaroos & koalas that seemed to be up every gum tree it was time to head home.

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