Gold Coast Day 5

We found out on the news this morning that there were over 200 lightning strikes in the Brisbane area last night and the airport recorded half of the average August rainfall in one night. But today its nice and sunny! We left before 8am for our 2 hour trek to the Australia Zoo.It was an amazing day, well worth the drive and the price of admission! We saw almost all the animal shows, otters, koalas, crocodiles, birds of prey and the main show in the ‘Crocoseum’. They really pack them in so we were hard pressed to find time to eat lunch. The kids all got to feed an elephant (not just any elephant, the one that travelled with Reese Witherspoon in Australia to promote Water for Elephants). I watched one mom take her little 2 year old up to feed the elephant…his entire hand disappeared into the end of the elephants truck, the mom had to yank his hand out and then hurried away as the look of shock started to register on the kids face. Every show they do at the zoo focuses on wildlife conservation. They know what they are doing….get to the little kids. We see all the Australian animals like dingos (looks exactly like a dog), Tasmanian devils (black and fast as lightning but doesn’t look anything like the Disney cartoon), echidnas (an extremely pointy nosed porcupine), kangaroos (mama was giving Joey a boxing lesson), wallabys, laughing kookaburras and blue tipped kookaburras, cassowaries (looks like some prehistoric emu) and of course all the snakes…multiple varieties of pythons and all 8 of the most venomous snakes in the world.

Just your standard python (at least he's not venomous)

In the crocodile show they have 2 trainers in the pen with a croc and 2 more waiting outside the enclosure in case they are needed. They feed the croc 3 times. Twice they get him out of the water (which is tough because they can stay underwater for up to 3 hours.....they have a lot of patience…..more than me) and once they get the croc to jump (like a dolphin) out of the water to get a piece of food. The crocs can use their tail to propel themselves almost their full height out of the water. Apparently the life span of a crocodile (this type) is between 60-80 years.

Once the shows are done we visit the exhibits we’ve missed. We come across our 3^rd koala exhibit. We have seen them twice today and all had the chance to pet one…we almost opted not to visit them for a 3^rd time but they are so darn cute it’s hard to resist…..and it’s good we didn’t. We really lucked out because all 20 of them were AWAKE and on the move. Since koalas sleep, on average, 20 hours/day (similar to teenage boys on summer break) most of the times we’ve seen any they have been sleeping. But the keepers were replenishing the eucalyptus food supply so they were all happily munching and climbing over each other and jumping from branch to branch and sitting on each other’s heads. Within about 15 minutes of all this activity, half were already asleep or settling down for a nap. On that happy note we left the Zoo.

Baby koala on the move.

There are lots of tributes to Steve Irwin at the Zoo. His little girl, Bindi, is like the Dora of Australia. She has books, a line of clothing, a t.v. show and her name on everything from knapsacks to hairclips. We saw a video clip that featured the little boy – Bob, who is the spitting image of his dad, even in the way he talks - “Crikey”. After we left the Zoo we had another mission. Somewhere in the area is a place called Buckleys Hole (true story). It ends up being on Bribie Island which is about ½ hour from Beerwah (which is where the Zoo is). We drive past the Glass House Mountains (which was enough to say we saw them) and pineapple fields to get there. Buckleys Hole Conservation Park is a peaceful, calm place (which stands to reason….cough, cough, insert eye roll) on the tip of the island and it is excellent for bird watching. Mission accomplished – we head for home.