We arrived in Mooloolaba to sunshine and a gentle breeze, something we had both yearned for since we arrived in Australia. As previously mentioned, Katrina had been kind enough to deliver us to the hostel door, so after a fond farewell we checked in and unloaded the monstrous weights that our bags have turned into and set off to explore our new home for the next five nights.

Just down the road from the hostel we welcomed the sight of the glistening ocean and a gorgeous long white sandy beach. We walked along the pedestrianised promenade which featured all kinds of little boutiques and shops, restaurants and cafes and some yummy looking gelato counters. I had the feeling I’d like it here!!

After making a quick dash to Coles (Australian supermarket chain) to stock up on some essentials we headed back to the hostel to dump the shopping, change into more fitting clothing and head to the beach for the rest of the afternoon. We’ve learned not to take the sunshine for granted! We returned to the hostel that evening feeling great after our intake of Vitamin D and we were happy to hear that the weather would stay fine for the next couple of days.

Mark had planned that we would walk to Maroochydore on Saturday which was about 3km away along the seafront, but as we approached the beach it didn’t take much persuasion to ditch that idea and just have another day snoozing in the rays. That night we were treated to a free sausage bbq at the hostel, which I enjoyed whilst catching up with mum on skype.

On Sunday we decided we would visit the town’s sole attraction, UnderWater World which was just round the corner from us on the wharf, mainly due to the fact that Marks patience would be severely tested if I dragged him back to the beach again for the whole day! So we spent the next few hours wandering around the aquarium which featured a fish tank made out of a car and a 2.5-million-litre oceanarium which featured all the usual suspects. We also watched the sea lion show and the otter show. We were told a great little story about the otters which I have to reiterate to you because I am still amazed by it. Basically the otters are great little escape artists and in order to keep them safe at night the keepers would lock them away in their den and close the trap door. Every morning when the keepers came to work they would find that these three little guys had somehow let themselves back out into their run and couldn’t understand how as the door was still closed. They did some detective work and realised that as soon as the keepers had left one of the otters would get his fingers underneath the trap door and hold it up while the other two got out before he followed and closed the door again. In order to stop this the keepers built a frame around the door so that the otter could no longer get his mitts in the crack. Clever otter huh?! But wait I’m not finished…. After a few nights of being confined to their den all night the otters must have hatched a little plan because a few mornings later the keepers came in to find the otters out in their run again with the door to their den securely down. The keepers were puzzled as there was no other way they could have got out of their den and they had made sure that there was no gap between the door and frame so again they did some detective work and noticed that one of the otters had a slight limp on returning to the den at night but it didn’t seem too serious as he could still walk on it without pain but other than that they were stumped. More observation was needed. It turned out after a few nights of watching them that he was in fact concealing a small stone in his paw on his way into the den at night and dropped it over the entrance so that when the keeper lowered the door it would in fact be slightly ajar but not noticeably to the keepers because of the frame, so after they left for the night he would again hold the door up for his mates and out they’d be again to enjoy their run all night!! The keepers have since built a cover over their run and given in by allowing them the whole of the run and den, day and night. I was so amazed by this story and the sheer genius of these little fury creatures, it still tickles me as I write this. Mark and I both agreed that these little guys showed more promise than a few people we know!

A quiet evening was had back at the hostel and it was decided that tomorrow we would visit Australia Zoo so I was muchos excited!

We were up bright and early the next day, ready for the free Australia Zoo bus that picked us up at 9:30am. It was a 25 minute bus ride to the Zoo and we were kept amused by a dvd of Steve Irwin up to his usual tricks. I remember watching him when he was first screened back at home and it was quite sad watching his dvd and the interviews with his dad, wife Terri and daughter Bindi talking about him. It made me realise how much he loved animals, all shapes and sizes and even showed him crying whilst cuddling a crocodile that had died in the zoo. I could sympathise with his sadness of the animal dying, although I’m not sure even I would have cried over a crocodile!!

The zoo was originally set up by his parents in 1970 and was known as the Beerwah Reptile Park, but Steve and Terri took over management in 1992. They are still developing the site and in the future propose to have, amongst other things, a drive through African Safari and hotel on site. All the crocodiles in the zoo were either captured by Steve in northern Queensland or bred on site, so he had a great understanding of them all. One of the crocs Steve capture was Acco, a massive black croc that weighs about a ton! On the dvd I mentioned previously, Steve explains that Acco has never forgiven him for capturing him and shows how the croc goes crazy when Steve goes into his pen, but he just chuckles back at the camera and says in his familiar way “Grumpy little fella”!

We were given a map of the zoo on arrival which also listed all the live show times that we could check out as part of the admission. We were quite amazed at the size of the place and of everything that was going on. First stop of the day would be the ‘Morning Elephant Feed’ where anyone who wanted to could queue up and feed some fruit to a gorgeous elephant! Along the way we had a quick peek at the Komodo Dragon which was massive and the Aldabran Tortoises which are even bigger! Going with the theme of ‘big’ I soon found myself face to face with Dumbo’s mum who curled her trunk around my hand to pick up the piece of melon I had on offer for her. The whole experience was over pretty quickly and I was left with a hand full of elephant spittle but she enjoyed the melon so that’s all that matters.

11:00 am - Next stop ‘Wildlife Warriors Show’ at the famous Crocoseum. We were both rather excited by this as the show features the Croc demonstration so we quickly made our way there so we could bag a good seat in the coloseum type stadium which centred on a big U shaped lagoon with a grassy middle. Steve actually designed the stadium himself as he wanted to have a water based tunnel system that the crocs could swim through to emerge in the stadium lagoon and then back again to their enclosure. The show has a conservation message throughout and began with the three gorgeous elephants making another appearance. Then came the snakes wrapped around various staff members clad in famous khaki uniform which were also brought around the audience for a closer look and after them a selection of various native birds and parrots were swooping around our heads at lightning speeds. We were quite amazed that the birds happily swooped around us and then back to their keepers instead of making a break for it! They must be doing something right.
Finally it was ‘Norman’ the crocs turn to be released and we watched on the big screen as he was released from his enclosure and slid silently through the tunnels towards the Crocoseum. Over the next 20 minutes we watched as the keeper made him leap and strike out of the water for his dinner and also learnt that it is a myth that a crocodile can out run you on dry land so as long as you stay out of the water and away from the waters edge and ‘strike’ range you should be fine around crocs. Hhhmmm….we’ll trust them on that one!

After we exited the Crocoseum I insisted on visiting the “Kids Zoo” which featured little piglets, lambs and calves. I’m just a sucker for baby animals! Mark wasn’t so impressed so after purchasing two packs of ‘Roo feed we made our way to ‘Roo Heaven’ (thankfully they are all still alive and well contrary to the name!) which consisted of a massive walk through enclosure, housing around 70 ’tame’ kangaroos and wallabies which can be hand fed. It was a bit of a mission to found our ‘own’ kangaroo but we eventually collared one and hungry or not we were going to feed him two packs of food whilst taking photos!! We were soon surrounded by a few ‘roos which were getting quite friendly and one (who seemed to have his toe nail painted red!!) insisted on holding my hand down while he ate! ‘Red Nail’ as we affectionately called him just wanted to follow us around as we tried to feed some other ‘roos (one of which had a joey in her pouch!!) so eventually I gave in and fed him the rest of my bag. I felt a strong bond with that guy and it was hard to say goodbye to him but we were soon on our way to the ‘Koala Talk’ which was taking place.
Here we listened to some interesting facts about the koala such as the word koala means ‘No drink’ in aboriginal as the koala bear never needs to drink because the gum leaves they eat are 80% water. At the end of the talk one of the poor fellas was plucked from the tree and walked around the enclosure so everyone could have a pat of him to feel his fur which was amazingly soft.

After I finished convincing Mark that I wanted to be a Koala keeper we boarded the shuttle to take us to the ‘Tiger Temple’. Along the way we stopped and admired the two little Red Pandas which looked super soft and cuddly but nothing like their black and white cousins. We continued on to the tiger enclosure which even boasted a swimming pool for the cute kittys! All the tigers (5 or 6 I can’t remember exactly!) have been hand reared and therefore the keepers can happily sit about IN their enclosure and chat amongst themselves whilst the cats lay about them having a ‘cat-nap’! Get it! Haha! Anyway…we watched as one of the keepers happily pounced from cat to cat, ruffling their fur and tugging their heads about which none of them seemed to mind! He even attempted to get one of the cats to chase him around the enclosure but he wasn’t having any of it and carried on napping in the sun.

I’ll take this opportunity to explain that the zoo itself is immaculate. I was really surprised at how well kept it is and all the enclosures are spotless and spacious enough for the animals enclosed in them. They all had floor to ceiling glass fronts so everyone can see clearly, a lot of places should take note of what they’ve done here. Steve Irwins presence is also felt all around the park in photographs, sculptures and videos played on loop. Even the staff have adopted some of his catchphrases such as ‘Crikey’ and ‘What a beaut’ it’s actually quite endearing.

Anywho…after the tigers we headed for the second ‘roos enclosure which housed the Red Kangaroos although between you and me they all looked the same to us!! We decided not to feed these guys as we were running low on time so I gave one a quick pat and we carried on through to the Rainforest Aviary. We walked through there (thankfully poo free!) and admired all the birds we could spot before continuing to the Southern Hairy-Nosed and Common Wombats which were cute. They looked like a cross between a giant guinea pig and a koala bear (facial remembrance!). Next up were the Australian Snakes venomous and harmless varieties. All of them looked pretty ferocious to me although I think the smaller ones look scarier than the big ones, but what do I know!

With time of the essence we realised we hadn’t actually seen the famous crocs yet, apart from Norman so we made a hasty beeline to the ‘Khaki Territory’ which housed the collection. We visited the famous ‘Acco’ who I mentioned previously and ‘Agro’ who gave Steve so much of it when he was trying to catch him the name stuck! Most of the time we were playing a ‘Who can spot the croc’ game as their lagoons were quite murky so all you could see where their nostrils and eyes on the surface of the water. All the crocs that Steve caught were because they were becoming a threat or nuisance to the local communities and would have been killed otherwise so really they owe their lives to him.
We had just enough time after that to have a quick peak at the American Alligators before heading back for the bus to take us home. All in all a great day out and well worth the admission cost but now we were pooped and ready for a lay down.

The next day we would be moving about 3km down up the coast to Maroochydore so we didn’t do much after returning to the hostel, just relaxed really.

A & M x