Crikey Mate

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6-4-2017

Today I went to Australia Zoo! The world famous zoo that was home to Steve Irwin.
It was about an 100 Km drive from the park that I was staying at in Brisbane. I headed that way quite early so I had plenty of time to explore it all.
They renamed the road the Zoo is on to Steve Irwin Way and wow that is one beautiful road, of course the concrete is not amazing but the scenic sights from it are great. While driving on it you can see huge mountains in the back ground and the road itself has some Steve Irwin Memorabilia.

I arrived at Australia Zoo and quickly found a parking area, no not because it was not busy but just because they have catered for so many people. It's easter holiday here so everything is extra busy at the moment and prices go up but o well.
I walked to the park and bought a ticket and the first thing I see is a statue of Steve and his family. I received a booklet with all the animals and schedule for that day. At this time it was 11:30 and I noticed there was the main event at 12:00 in the crocoseum where Terri, Robert and Bindi would perform a croc feeding show. I thought I'd head there straight away as I had no idea where it was exactly and it may get busy regarding seating.

I followed the map I received and walked over to the crocoseum, while walking there I tried to ignore all the animals as much as possible so I could see them all later. The crocoseum is quite a nice big building which is arena like with in the middle of it an area where they could give the shows. When I arrived someone seemed to be singing and dancing on a stage. Looked in my booklet and it seemed Bindi was performing with her background dancers. I had no idea she did these shows but it sounded alright. It was clearly catered towards the children but i'm sure they were all having fun.

I watched the show and found myself a seat in the arena. At about 12:05 Bindi was finished and some other people entered the arena welcoming everyone. It all started with some snakes that they talked about while walking around with them through the audience. They then started showing off some birds which honestly was quite amazing. They had huge birds of prey come in the arena and fly around before getting some food, they then had some parrot like birds fly around and fly just above the audience. They then had some birds fly around that have apparently adjusted to being able to swim, they had them swim in the little pool and wow did they swim fast, once them came out they flapped there wings a bit before taking off again.

While the animals were all flying around they explained everything about the birds. They then had some show where they taught a bird to fly to people with a 5 Dollar note. Basically if that person would hold a 5 Dollar note the bird would fly there and grab the note and fly back to his owner haha thats one way of getting rich right? Of course he returned the money but the fact that they can train birds to do these things is amazing.

After the bird show they introduced Terri, Robert and Bindi in to the arena. First they talked about them selves a bit before introducing the croc to the show.
They talked about the croc and about it's habits before feeding him.
There was a lot of humour during the show and mentions of Steve Irwin.
All in all the show was amazing and put together well.

After the show was finished I walked back to the entrance and started looking at all the animals first thing I found was a comodo dragon which is a reptile i've enjoyed looking at ever since I saw it first in London zoo with my dad. I stood there for about 5 minutes and all of sudden people came out with boards and a dead rabbit on a piece of string. They were about to feed the dragon, I was lucky to see this as i'd never seen it happen. They had the boards to protect their legs as even if the dragon just licks you you could die from it as his saliva causes infections that are deadly.

They simulated a wild animal with the rope attached to the rabbit before cutting the rope loose, the dragon did not bite it or cut it up like we do before eating.. nope it just swallowed a whole rabbit hole like a snake would do it was amazing to see. He ate a whole rabbit in about 15 seconds, Gulp and it was gone.

After I watched the spectacle I headed in to the park where I saw a train was parked to pick up people to bring them to the back of the park, the park has been designed in a way that if you get the train to the back of the park and walk back and see every single animal in the park!

I decided to hop on the train and went to the back of the park. Once there I saw giraffes, rhinos and zebra's. Steve had a view that he wanted as many animals to live in the same habitat as they would in the wild so they were all in the same area.

While walking on the track towards the front side of the park I came across loads of animals way to many to even mention but at some point I reached the tiger arena. There were about 2 tigers in there at the time and were supposed to be about 15 so I was wondering what was going on. All of a sudden it started getting really busy and people started sitting on the arena like chairs. I gathered something was about to happen so I sat there and waited. About 5 minutes later some people came out and they had a tiger show. They had the tiger do some tricks and show everything a tiger was capable of. It was nothing like a circus they were very respectful towards the tiger and you could see the tiger loved to show of.. Especially for some milk haha.

After the show I continued on the path towards towards the entrance seeing an amazing amount of animals like emu's, kangaroos, wallaby's, waterbirds, lizards, crocodiles, koala's. At some point I reached the Snake hotel where they have the top 9 most venomous snakes in the world... which quite funnily all originate from Australia. I looked at all the snakes and their beautiful faces before going to the cage where birds of prey are.

And some funny way once again all of a sudden it started getting busy and there was another show. I don't know how but somehow without planning I managed to see quite some shows. The zoo keepers had some birds of prey do some tricks like flying around the cage and catching food in the air which btw is impressive to see. I will say one thing about the zoo, you can tell all the animals receive a lot of love and it in no way is set up just for money. All of the zoo keepers were incredibly friendly towards both people and animals, the animals all had loads of space to roam around. You can just tell that the zoo was setup by people that have incredible amounts of love for all animals.

After I watched the show it was getting late so I decided to start walking a little bit faster to make sure I had seen it all before driving to my next sleeping area. A lot of holiday parks close check in at 17:00/18:00 so I had to make sure I found one before that time and also before it was dark of course. I drove to Sunshine Coast where I hopped in to a holiday park and stayed for the night.

I had an amazing time at the Zoo and can recommend that if you're in the area to go there!

7-4-2017

Today I Roamed around Sunshine coast a bit before taking and driving to Hervey Bay (Pronounced Harvey Bay - I was correct by locals haha). I arrived at about 13:00 and went to the pier in Hervey Bay which is quite famous. It goes about 1KM in to the Ocean and you get a good view on to the famous island of Fraser Island and also big woody island.

After I spent some time on the Pier I drove to the Esplanade where they have a bunch of little shops where I went in and out of. Then I headed to some Holiday park where I am still now haha. I went for a nice afternoon swim in the swimming pool and had a shower after before enjoying some series and watching youtube on the great Wi-Fi connection at this park.

8-4-2017

Today was another lazy day, I must say that I drove from Melbourne to here in a month time i've been driving more slowly now and enjoying the slowness a lot. Just relaxing and going at a little bit slower pace it's nice! I headed over the the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hervey Bay which were quite small yet also nice. They had a little area with a Chinese garden as apparently they also have a friendship with a Chinese town like Sydney does.
Today I asked some locals where I could find a skatepark so I went to the skatepark and skated there for a bit before doing some shopping and going back to the holiday park to catch up on more series. That evening I ate tacos which were quite good!.

9-4-2017
Today I'm still at the same park but i'll be leaving again tommorow. It's 30 degrees today so i'm just relaxing and enjoying the weather with a cold coke sitting outside in the shadow programming and of course writing this blog.
I won't do much more today maybe go for a swim but i'll be sure to let you know if I do go and do anything.

I met 2 friendly people from the same area as where I am from in the UK so we had some breakfast together and just generally had a good time talking.

Thanks for reading!



I can't get as many pictures online as I would of liked. Hope you still like the ones I did get online. I'll post more as soon as the Wi-Fi lets me

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