Day 168 - Australia Zoo

CRIKEY!



Australia Zoo was always going to be a highlight. Its pretty hard for the home of Steve Irwin not to be. In fact, when I originally made Sam's blog, she cited 'meeting Steve Irwin at Australia Zoo' as one of her 3 most favoured things to do around the world (along with swimming with dolphins and, strangely, just Thailand). Anyway, all-round-legend Rog let us take his posh car an hour up the coast to the zoo (I mean, when does that ever happen back home? People here are unbelievably nice), so just after the first croc show of the day had finished, we rocked up at the entrance to be confronted with a massive sign of Steve Irwin holding, you guessed it, a crocodile.



Sam's got this weird thing about wanting to hold every type of 'friendly' or 'drugged-so-much-it-is-friendly' animal in australia. She's managed a croc (with its mouth taped shut) and stroked koalas and stuff already. But today she wanted to properly HOLD a koala. Which she got to do, the lucky girl. I however, had greater ambitions. I wanted to hold BINDI IRWIN, who would be holding a koala herself. I reckon this would be a first for australia zoo. Anyway, at the entrance, after blagging a discount for us (I love aussies), I asked, very politely, if Bindi was in the part today. It seems she wasn't. I got the stock answer of 'i haven't seen her today' followed by an explanation that she doesn't attend school but instead has a personal tutor. I was given this same answer a number of times through the day, so had to settle for a picture of me and the girl in a poster. But check out how brown I am!



Anyway, time was pressing on, and this park (as I envisioned it from the TV program which I've watched back home in the UK) is massive. NO ITS NOT. Its small. Its not massive AT ALL. Right, you can walk from one side to the other in about 15 minutes. Maybe less if you didn't have to wait for the stupid noddy train to pass by for 5 of them. Its tiny. AND, on the program, there are people on every corner letting you stroke parrots and hold lizards. we saw 2. Its false advertising. That said, we did see a massive lizard just hanging around on the path. That was pretty cool.



We hit the croc show first, which was tame. And enormous. Shed loads of people, all of which had to shout 'crikey' in memory of steve. that was embarrassing. But the real tear-jerking moment came when he hit the screens. Sam was almost crying, and I was welling up. Same footage they used when he was alive methinks, of him explaining stuff about crocs. But yeah, he was pretty damn cool. Right under the stadium are these massive rows of tribute shirts that people have signed, along with big old inflatable crocodiles covered in sympathetic messages for his family. A few typos of the word 'crikey', and some messages seeming sent by housewives who were madly in love with the guy, but generally a full-on emotional memorial which tugged at those tears once again. We miss you steve.





On to the animals, and the park is rammed with them. We saw camels...



tasmanian devils (which are like little cute pigs with massive mouths)...



wombats (massive dog-like things that plod around. you just wanna roll around with these guys)...



dingos (feral dogs - DULL)



and elephants (what the hell are these doing here?)



And, get this, here you can HAND-FEED KANGEROOS. We had no idea, right, before we came. So we're sat on this noddy train to get from one side of the park to the other (ohhh, that shaves at least a minute off your journey) when we're told that if we get off before the Tigers, we can buy kangeroo food (aka fish food) from the train driver. So we did. And then spent at least an hour feeding these wicked looking kangeroos. It was awesome.







One of them tried to eat my finger, which wasn't impressive, and another actually swiped a paw at sam's face in defence when she bent down for a photo. But aside from that, these animals are well cute. They use their monster tails like a 3rd leg, which is a bit rank, and they lie down in this weird 'chillaxing' pose. But apart from that, their bodies are graceful and curved in the most beautiful way. They move really gracefully, and whilst their faces lack any sort of expression, you know that they're pretty smart, sussing you out as you reach down. Its not just about the food. I liked that about them.





Anyway, I hand-fed a fruit to an elephant. that was weird. then we legged it over to the tiger encampment. These animals are BEAUTIFUL without doubt. I don't need to tell you that. But seeing the trainers arse about with them in the pool, making them jump around and stuff, was weird but they looked pretty happy. I dunno. I don't know what I really think about zoos. even this one was a bit sick in places. Surely in this day and age we can find a way to watch wildlife without it being locked up - regardless of the quality of its surroundings. But hey, I paid the entrance price like everyone else. I'm a hypocrite if I claim its bad form. Maybe this will be my last zoo. who knows.



One final thing to note. As we were leaving, we popped into the gift shop to see if sam could by a Steve Irwin style shirt. and guess what. the place is full of EVERY concievable type of steve irwin merchandise. From flip-flops to wind-up-toys, t-shirts with his family on them and even aprons and tea towels. all with steve plastered all over them. I had no idea he was such an icon. i mean, I know people love him, but this stuff is SICK.

   

That evening was Halloween, and Rog had a treat lined up for us. He whisked us across Brisbane town to his brother's house where we chewed down some great food, and I carved my first ever pumpkin. Its a bit dodgy looking, but I was pretty impressed for my first go. Some kid came round trick-or-treating (its a new thing over here - even celebrating Halloween has only happened for the last 4 or 5 years) and just walked into the house and took some sweet and left - cheeky bugger. You wouldn't get away with that back home.



The next day, Sam and I spent the day trying to sort out how to get to the renowned Fraser Island. This proved to be a challenge and 3 hours later we had sorted it. And after watching some TV with Rog and out last good nights sleep for what would prove to be over a week, we jumped on a bus to Hervey Bay the next day. 7 hour bus journeys? Easy when you're used to 40-hour journeys...