Yesterday we went to Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo!!! We started our journey on a courtesy coach at 9:30am, which had a huge picture of Steve Irwin on the side of it and the famous word 'CRIKEY!' lol

The journey was half an hour long and there were several small T.V's dotted about showing the life of Steve Irwin, which I found entertaining and quite emotional to watch. He is seen as a legend and has left behind a beautiful family. His two children are showing a lot of Steve's enthusiastic personality and are becoming very famous. We all know Steve for his love of wildlife, but he was also very good at surfing, which I thought was a nice little bit of info :)

Towards the end of our coach trip, the driver announced that a road we were travelling along, which was originally called 'Glass House Mountains Road', has been renamed 'Steve Irwin Way'. Also the zoo is being extended and will eventually be a 500 acre safari! So his legacy will always live on.

When we had arrived and entered the zoo, we walked to a show called 'Australia Zoo Wildlife Warriors' located at what is called the Crocoseum. Steve was very fond of crocodiles, he wrestled his first at the age of nine! It's no wonder he designed this stadium to enable others to watch these reptiles in all their glory. I remembered his wife Terri had said in the DVD shown on the coach, that this is a very good example of how Steve's mind worked. (A picture of the Crocoseum is in the photo album).

The show started, a man was standing on the square platform benief us. He was very lively and enthusiastic, I could see why he was picked. He had us pretending to be all kinds of different creatures! Ian and I felt a bit silly, so just watched others, which was more fun:)

Next a lady with a similar, bubbly personality brought out some elephants! Afterwards staff walked from the top of the stadium to the bottom holding snakes! Then finally before the croc was released, we saw many types of birds fly above our heads, one in particular was very memorable, a Dhagarna, it has extremely thin, long legs and was a graceful flyer, but had a clumsy landing :) sooo cute!

Some music began to play in the background and a large T.V screen showed the croc being released into the stadium. It swam slowly under the water towards the centre. The man was holding a piece of meat in his hand and was stamping on the ground at the edge of the water, to get the crocs attention. You could see the croc change direction and cauciously approaching him! It's funny, I knew they performed this everyday, but it still made me feel nervous! The croc got within reach and SNAP! The croc leaped out of the water and tried to bite the meat from his hand. The man walked back from the edge allowing the croc to get out of the water. The croc had small stumpy legs and appeared to find it more difficult to move about on land, but was still scary! The man swung the meat near the crocs face and SNAP! It was gone! Thankfully without the mans hand! lol

They performed a few more tricks, one involved the man standing on the top of a raised platform above the waters edge. He was swinging meat in the air and the croc actually leaped it's body out the water and managed to reach the meat! You would never catch me on the platform, that's for sure! lol

After the performance we went off to explore, we saw koala's being disturbed by the feeding time ( they do love their sleep! ), kangaroo's chilling in the sunshine, european foxes, a wombat on a lead taking the worker for a walk! A camel who refused to get up from the ground for a show :),Tiger pups, a leopard on a walk around the zoo (also on a lead!) and at the end of our visit we actually sat and stroked two very pretty dingo's! awww!!!!!!

We paid a little extra to do this and there was just me, Ian and another British lady, supervised by two workers. We all sat in a fenced off grassy area with a small group of passing visitors watching from outside every now and again.

The dingos were a lot calmer than domestic dogs, appearing to be not so bothered about having human attention. We were able to stroke them though and they did seem to enjoy it, but were maybe just a little more interested in the food in the workers' pouches, lol!

Well, that was it! We have another trip booked tomorrow, which is a half day boat trip in Noosa, so I will update you when we get back. Fingers crossed on the weather, as it is forecasted late thunder! Which could be inetersting! LOL Sick bags and life jackets at the ready! :)

Xx