Sunshine Coast - Day 8

Crikey - Australia Zoo

I was so excited this morning as we were doing one of the items that has been on my bucketlist forever which is Australia Zoo. I love the Irwins’ and everything they do and all the projects they are involved in so I was eager to get started.

We arrived at the zoo at about 9:30 and made a plan of attack for the day. We headed into Africa first and had to take the shuttle to get there as it was the furthest part of the park. On the way we saw a keeper out with one of the hand reared cassowary chicks. He was the cutest thing ever. We spoke to the keeper a bit and she said he is only 5 months old. After the cassowary we made our way over to the shuttle to get to Africa.

The habitats for the animals at Australia Zoo are stunning. They are huge and beautifully decorated. The first things we saw in the African area was the Savannah. There was the cutest baby giraffe that was galloping around. There were also zebras and Southern White Rhino. We wandered down to check out the meerkats and enjoyed watching them running around and being on alert. The funniest thing was that the meerkats are sponsored by comparethemarket.

We went and explored Bindi’s island. The entrance is a shipwreck and once you have walked through you are on a small island that was lemurs running very where. There is also a huge tree house with boa constrictors and turtles in it. There were also wild lizards running all over the place.

After this section we were lucky to walk into the Asian session and caught the middle of the tiger show. The tigers were beautiful and were demonstrating their jumping and climbing abilities. The tigers then went for a swim and mucked around together. We saw the elephants and the red panda before heading for lunch.

We had lunch in the Crikey Cafe. They had heaps of choices for eating. From burgers, pies, hotdogs, salads and many extra things. You can just walk down the line of food and add anything you want to your tray. After we were refreshed and ready to go again we did a tad of shopping and then headed to get a spot in the shade for the Crocaseum.

The croc show started and we got to see lots of parrots, cormorants, birds of prey. They talked about what to do if you got bitten by a snake. And then it was time for the croc feeding. I was very excited when I saw Robert Irwin and Chandler come out to do the show. I as hoping to see the Irwin’s. They bought out Monty for feeding. It was very cool. Such a nice show and quiet interesting to watch the videos on the zoo and conservations.

After the show we tried to do the rest of the zoo but it as getting very hot. We saw the koalas. Spent some time in the reptile house and then finished up with the birds of prey show.

As something that has been on my bucketlist for so long I thought that maybe it wouldn’t live up to my expectations but it really did. The zoo is amazingly layed out and designed. The habitats are large and are well equipped for the animals. I loved every minute of it. We also got to see Robert Irwin’s photography exhibition and man is he one clever dude. All in all the most amazing day and another item of many I can tick off my bucketlist this trip.