This blog is written in the syle of the late great Croc hunter Steve Irwin (what a guy!).

I was totally syked to be in Brissie mainly because I had heard so much about Australia Zoo. This zoo was set up by the loony, mad, passionate, fair dinkum Aussie bloke that was Steve Irwin. I was picked up by the Croc Express tour bus early for the 1.45 hour drive to the zoo. During our journey we were given badges to wear, watched Steve Irwin footage and given top tips by the tour guide who used to work at the zoo and claimed to be mates with the Irwins. We were very excited!

There was a animal show that was TOTALLY AWESOME. It began with Elephants and then many different parrots such as black and sulphur cockatoos, gallahs, lorakeets flying around the crocoseum, swooping your head whilst there was a snake swimming in the central area . You could honestly have done with a few more eyes in different parts of your head as there was so much to look at. Then a huge stalk like bird (Jaibiru) flew into the stadium, it must have have been 150cm tall with a 2 meter windspan. You beauty! After a little bit of fun with the audience being made to pull add faces like complete drongos to imitate animals it was time for the finalle. Croc time!! He was a big fella, and you could feel the nervousness coming from the 2 keepers who put on the hard yacka trying to coax the croc to leap for food. When they finally succeeded in getting him to leap you could truelly appreciate that you didnt want to be on the wrong side of any fence with any croc. Strewth! The whole show blew me away.

As the morning progressed I felt more of the zoos beliefs and values with them trying to show what animals can do and so making you have more respect for the creature. The zoo also allowed you to get closer to animals than you wouldn't normally in the wild so that you were more likely to form an attchment to it. The idea being with more respect or the greater the attachment to an animal you would do more to protect it in the wild by either supporting projects or changing your behaviour in a positive way when you see an animal in the street. After this I set off to have the manditory animal portrait taken, as I joined the queue I realised the wait was enormous to hold a cuddley koala but there was no one waiting to hold an alligator. Crikey! What a bunch of drongos! I went for the alligator, he was a juvenile of about 50cm in length and felt very delicate as I held him, "you're alright mate". What a champ!! I then got to stroke wombats, koalas, a wallabie and roos. They were so relaxed, laying on the sides in the sun with the big legs sprawled out to the side. Oh the life being hand fed by tourists while enjoying the sun. Bonza!

To make a good fist of my visit to the zoo I booked an arvo walk with a zoo keeper. He talked me into feeding elehants which was not as nice as you might imagine. Their trunks felt like wet, dirty sand paper when they take the carrot from your hand. Ewwww. (i dont think steve has a word for Ewwww). Continuing my tour I was taken to see the big cat show where the keepers were playing with the siberian tigers and getting them to swim and climb trees so you could get an appreciation of what they could do. They were awesome! Other highlights of the zoo were the cassowary (affectionaly referred to as cassowary big DOGGS). You could be forgiven in thinking that this big flightless bird was straight out of Jurassic Park with its menacing stare and its dinasaur style horn. To see what I mean try this you tube link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA58sS3x2Oo&feature=related The end of the tour took me past the crocs that I had seen on the croc hunter show as home such as Aggro who is over 15ft, weighs over 600kgs and has killed 4 lawn mowers up to now. Crikey you ripper!

Meanwhile I(Andy) had reached Rainbow beach. Which as Helena mentioned in the previous blog is a rather sleepy seaside town the reason for it to be populated with so many travellers is because it is one of a few doorways to Fraser Island.

The weather forecast for Fraser Island was poor so the self-drive guided 4x4 trip I'd booked on had been postponed for a few days. I spent those days getting up early and running on the beach (saw a mother and calf humpback whale early one morning about 100m off shore). Walking up to the Carlo sand blow (named after one of Capt. Cooks deckhands) and also walked all the way to the Double Island Point to check out the surfers cruising on one of the longest right handers in the world. That was a proper bush walk and spent a lot of time de-tangling myself from spider webs. Fairly certain at one point I was stood next to a red back spider too. Eek! Run!

The day of the 4x4 tour arrived and I was up first to drive. We reached the ferry and drove on. The 4x4 driver in front forgot to use the handbrake and almost ran into the guides vehicle in front. That would've been a great start. Over the next two days we saw fresh water lakes and sand blows on what is the largest sand island in the world. Fraser Island acts like one huge natural sand groyne. Collecting sand as the current moves it north. Without Fraser Island collecting all this sand the Great Barrier Reef to the north wouldn't exist.

We also saw dingos, freshwater creeks with water so clear you could easily see the camouflage fish beneath the surface. We stopped at the famous ship wreck and made our way to Indian Point. A large craggy cliff where Aboriginal punishments were carried out. Jump or be pushed and it was a long way down.

There were 7 of us in our 4x4 and we each took turns. Driving on the beach at speed was quite difficult and we'd all seen that results of what happens if you crash so we were cautious. Keeping up with the other vehicles was also tricky. Especially when you no longer could see where they went and poor visibility wasn't helping. Heading to Indian Point was a task. We had to get there and back before the high tide cut us of from the ferry landing point. Our driver at the time was going too fast hadn't followed the tracks of those way in front. We hit a couple of steep rolling dry bits of sand off to the left of the smoother sand and it felt like we had lift off. A couple of crashes and bodies being thrown around in the back we came to a stop. A seatbelt had come undone and a few people had hit there heads on the roof. Shaken we arrived at our stop and were all glad to get out. Luckily the vehicle wasn't damaged and neither was anyone inside except we were all a little shaken by it.

We camped on the island and had a BBQ each night. Goon and beer was drunk and the dingos came round the camp scavenging. The weather spoiled the trip a bit but overall I enjoyed myself.

Next stop was Brisbane.

Croc watch: WHOOOHOOO Crocs galore!

Andy + Helena