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Published: December 9th 2022
1. Tilly the Cassowary
Tilly the Cassowary that we fed by handToday was our last opportunity to use our 3 day ticket at Hartley’s Crocodile Adventures so we set off aiming to get there in time for the 9am activities. They predicated rain and thunder/lightening today, but it was sunny, clear blue sky and 29 degrees already!
The drive back down from Port Douglas along the coast is probably one of the prettiest roads we’ve ever been on. At times, you are right next to the incredible blue water lapping onto a very narrow strip of beach. I don’t think you could ever get bored of driving down it. It’s not all perfect though, they’re doing roadworks at the moment removing fallen rocks and unstable rocky overhangs and the size of the boulders they’ve dislodged are massive! They block half the road!
We got to our destination with 10 minutes to spare, our activity of choice today was feeding the Cassowary’s. Large emu like birds but they’re almost prehistoric looking creatures. They warn you to be Casso-wary if you come up against these in the wild, they are not the most sociable of animals and will likely attack you if they think you’re invading their territory! But here, safely behind
2. Tawny Frogmouth Owl
This Tawny Frogmouth was not fazed by us at all a fence, they are just happy you’re there to feed them their breakfast.
As it was so early, there weren’t many people in the park, so just us and a family of 3 at this 9am feeding. The two females are the ones you can hand feed, Tilly and Big Bird. When the keeper arrived and was explaining how to feed them and a bit about them in general, Big Bird got a bit impatient and starting making some very odd noises, like a gutteral rumble, effectively telling us all off for taking too long!
We were near Tilly so picked fresh fruit from the bowl the keeper supplied and fed her through the fence at first, then over the top of it once we were happy she took it gently! She soon got fed up and wandered off for a lie down and it was only at that point, the keeper mentioned she had turmeric sprinkled on her food to help her joints! Sure enough we both had very yellow hands! Talk about picking the wrong bird!
After this we went to the predatory bird walk in aviary, the keeper had followed us there as she
3. Barn Owl
Although inquisitive, this Barn Owl wasn't bothered had to do her morning checks, clearing any uneaten food (i.e. dead chicks!) from the aviary. As we were the only people in there, she pointed out each of the birds and gave us some information about their personality’s. They had a swamp hen called Chips, who was quite a character! Apparently, he screams at people a lot and they’ve had to put up a sign assuring people he’s OK, that’s just what he does! He seemed too busy sprucing himself up for crowds later to bother too much with us though.
After this was walked to the Kangaroo and Wallaby enclosures, they were still hiding at the back under the tree’s at this point though. They also had an area with some flying fox bats, all rescues, they seemed quite content hanging around in there but being bats, they weren’t very active in the daytime!
We also saw some reptiles, including snakes (Roy loves snakes….. not!) lizards, gecko’s and a massive Komodo dragon. This was a lovely building to wander round, mainly because it was air conditioned! It was getting very hot at this point!
We moved onto a tropical bird aviary, but we weren’t very
4. Swamphen
Chips the Swamphen, apparently can be mischievous impressed with this one, then spotted a sign saying it was under maintenance and apologising for the inconvenience. It explained why it wasn’t up to the same quality as the other area’s in the park. What we did notice in here was the MASSIVE spider in the air lock to the aviary. It was huge! Plus part of it’s web was attached to the exit door, so you almost provoked it by trying to get past it. Still shudder when we think back to that moment! We’ve tried to find out what it was, we believe it was a giant golden orb spider.
There were wombats, emu’s (still don’t like those!), rat kangaroo’s (not to be confused with kangaroo rats!) and many, many koala’s – with their own personal fan’s! Plenty of things to keep you occupied until the 11am crocodile feeding show.
We got to the crocodile area nice and early to grab a shady spot. They are really good for putting canopies over the seating area’s so most of it is in the shade. They had a challenge before the show even began as one of the croc’s had decided to plant itself in front of
5. Kookaburra
Kookaburra's have some amazing colours the gate they use to get in to feed them. It took a lot of effort to get it to move and it managed to snag a whole chicken they were using as a lure!
The shows here are great, they give you lots of information on the animals including the history of how they came to be at the park and also general facts. They take questions from the crowd and have a perfect balance of information and humour to keep the crowd engaged. It’s a great place to visit and well worth the cost.
Once we were done here, we headed back along our favourite road, stopping at a view point to take some pictures of the beach you drive along. Back at the hotel we treated ourselves to a much needed afternoon of relaxation and swimming in the pool.
We’re heading up to Cape Tribulation tomorrow for our final day in the area before heading down the coast. It makes us realise how little time we have left on our trip, but we’ll try not to dwell on that too much!
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