Crikey everyone!!

Arrived in Mooloolaba yesterday morning!! It was only about 30mins south of Noosa so a nice easy bus journey (making the most of them as it has just dawned on me that I have a 12hr journey between Byron Bay and Sydney in a couple of weeks)!! Had to chill out at the hostel for a couple of hours as my room wasn't cleaned yet!! Not too much of a problem considering they have a nice little pool here and the sun was shining! Headed down to the beach in the afternoon and it was so nice to be able to go to a beach where people can swim in the sea without worrying about jellyfish and sharks!! Had a quick run in the evening once the sun had gone down a bit which was actually quite nice!!

Went to Australia Zoo today!! Got picked up by the Oz bus and went straight there via Steve Irwin Road!! Once inside, I headed to the tortoises, and I don't mean your average pet tortoise!! These things were massive!!

Then it was on to the main attraction- the Croc show!! Although they call it the croc show, it actually involves loads of the animals!! First they had the elephants feeding right in front of me!! They are absolutely gorgeous animals and I definitely fell in love with them- more about them later though!! Then they brought out the snakes!! Now, I was at the end that would be behind the goal in a sport field but the keepers took some snkaes out along the sideline stands ( if you get what I mean)!! They also had a couple in the main area and put one in the pool and it swam around!! Not my favoourite part as you can imagine!! The next show was the birds, first we had some beautiful parrots, both the normal red and blue one that you probably think of first, and also some yellow and blue ones!! They were then followed by some similar birds (can't remember the names of them) but they were black and yellow under the tail, and white and red ones!! After they let out the lorikeets- now I've seen these (and still got the scratches from them!) but I didn't realise how fast they flew!! They did laps of the stadium and they were amazingly fast!! Finally they called in a huge bird, which flew from outside the stadium and into the main area!! It was quite tall (prob about a metre) and was black and white with long red legs!! Very elegant!! Then, it was time for the real show!! They brought out one of their salt-water crocs!! This one was at least two metres long and they did all the usual 'croc hunter' moves by getting it to launch out the water and into the air, and alo dangling food above the water and getting it to jump up out the water!! It is pretty impressive how agile they are, but over land they are pretty slow due to the their weight and their tail which kinda acts like a handbreak!! Apparently tourists get told to run in zigzags if they get chased by a croc over land, but thats rubbish, just run straight!!!!!

After this, I did a tour of the zoo, during which I came across a few lizards on the paths!! Now I'm guessing this in normal and they are harmless but you never know, there were a few empty cages around!! Some of the animals I saw-
>Camel
>Lizards- they had a few different ones, including one massive one! Must have been as long as I am tall!!
>Snakes- luckily none were moving when I went in so I have got plenty of pictures of these! They had all the common snakes in Australia! Bit worrying that the wall with the venomous and poisonous ones was twice the length of the non-dangerous ones!! There was also the reticulated python which can grow to 10m!! They had a live one and then they also had the skin of one that was just over 5m!!
>Wombats- these were sooo cute!! Quite small and when I saw them the keeper was stroking them and they were quite happy to go up to her and be patted!!
>Kangaroos- these are pretty chilled out animals!! They were just lazying about in the sun, and they don't even have to worry about food as visitors can buy food to feed them!! I didn't as you can just go up and stroke them anyway!! They are pretty relaxed!! Saw both grey and red kangaroos
>Koalas- just beat the kangaroos in the laziest animal competition! There was a walk way that you go through with koalas in trees either side, then they also have a petting bit in the middle with some of the baby koalas and a couple of adults!! Got some brilliant pictures of the baby ones sleeping in very wierd positions!!
>Tigers- these were gorgeous and I came back to see them again!! They have 3 tigers and the first time I saw them they were just chilling in the shade and the second time they were playing with robes and buckets and jumping in the pool which was cool!!
>Red pandas- these stay up in the trees mainly so couldn't get a good look at them but they seemed cute enough, about the size of a koala, maybe a bit bigger!!
>Crocs- obviously!! They have some salt-water and some fresh-water!! All pretty huge though, I certainly wouldn't wanna start jumping on them!!
>Elephants- my favourite by far, in the afternoon I went to the keeper talk about them and saw them washing down one of them!! Their actual colour is black, the grey colouring is mainly from dirt!! These alos had slightly pink tips of their ears and on their trunk where the skin pigment had been lost! The 3 elephants they have are all about 50 yrs old and the two biggest weigh over 4000kgs and the smallest over 2000kg!! They are very graceful animals and despite their size, actually have pretty good balance!! When we were watching them one decided to go for a swim and they seem to love rolling around in the water!! The smallest also made quite a bit of noise when another picked up some logs which was funny!! They are all really good with humans, as they were origianlly part of a circus act before they came to Oz Zoo, but they keepers build up good relationships with them and they respond to simple commands as well!! Later in the afternoon, I also went back to feed them!! You stand about 1.5m in front of them and hold out fruit and veg on a flat hand! The elephants then pick it up with their trunk as they have a kin of finger device on the top to grip food!! Definitely got a bit of slobber on my hand after by well worth it!! Their skin is pretty rough, just like you would imagine it to be!!

The other main attraction of the day was the immense amount of Steve Irwin mentions there were! It has only been 4 and a half years since his death but there are pictures of him everywhere! In the entrance, there is a bronze statue of the family with a croc and then near the stadium, they have a wall with photos showing the choc hunter story! Opposite is an entire shine to Steve with plenty of condolense letter to Terri and the kids! Also on the outside of the stadium there are loads of the icon croc hunter khaki shirts signed by members of the public!! They are definitely doing well to keep up his work of conservation!! During any talk, they not only talk about the animals but how to help protect them and how to act to avoid hurting them!! His kids are majorly involved with animals and the daughter Bindi even has her own clothes and accessories line which is available in the shops!!

On site, there is also an animal hospital which was originally set up in memory of Steves mum! It was recently renovated as well and can now care for 10,000 animals a year!! You can walk into the 'sneak peek' area and look into the operating theatres and also into the aftercare bit!! There was an operation going on but I couldn't see what animal it was!! However there was a koala and turtle nearby in blankets who were obviously recovering! There was also a baby koala in a cage with a machine attatched to the outside, just like in a human hospital!!

Overall, it was a brilliant day although very tired now as I walked everywhere and its a pretty big park!!

Sending lots of croc hunter love

xxxx