From Noosa we took a day trip to the home of Steve Irwin the Crocodile Hunter - The Australia Zoo! We got picked up by the croc express - a double-decker courtesy coach that takes you to the zoo for the day and shows you crocodile hunter on the telly the whole way.
Steve & Terri Irwin inherited the then reptile park (4 acres) from Bob Irwin, and now it is a 72 acre fun park and Irwin empire. Steve's legacy has continued in the teachings and conservation that he has passed onto his family and staff. He has so much respect here, its incredible. He has done amazing things for Australia. And you can't walk anywhere in the park without seeing the word 'crikey' everywhere, or listening to his videos talking about this or that 'gorgeous' animal.
Syd was able to feed Steve's 'gorgeous girls' (elephants) at a 10:30 feeding.
The zoo's main attraction is the many croc pools of all the crocs that he has saved over the years. The crocs are exhibited in the 'crocoseum' show twice a day where they show the crowd how a croc snaps up food with such force in its massive jaws. 
I was able to 'catch' a croc of my own.
Our favourite attraction was the roo heaven. This was basically an enclosure that everyone can walk around freely in and cavort with the kangaroos. If you buy food they will eat right out of your hand. Syd and I liked petting and sitting with the many different roos all over the park. They are all really friendly because they have been hand raised in the park with humans all the time. Which is why this roo let me hug him (sort of). 
We loved watching a joey eat the grass at the same time as its mother - while still in the pouch!
Our second favourite attraction was the koala enclosures. There were a couple of them so you could get up and close with them and watch them eat the eucalyptus/gum leaves, and even give them a pat on their soft bums. 
However, most of the time they just slept because they require 20 hrs of sleep a day as it takes a lot of energy to eat and digest all of the leaves (up to 1kg each) that they eat in a day. This guy was especially alert so made for a cute photo. ;o)
They had some other cool animals too like kookaburras (below),
wombats, wallabies, cowarras and tasmanian devils (below - he was hard to get a pic of cuz he ran around his pen so fast! ). 
The snake area was creepy with all the venomous snakes on display. The prettiest snake of all (non-venom) was the green python.
We really enjoyed our 'walk on the wild side'.
Astrid ;o)
1 comment:
crikey a pretty SNAKE never! What a neat zoo to see especially since every animal was indigenous to Oz these roos looked smaller than the wild ones you saw.
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