Noosa & Australia Zoo 10th - 13th October 2010

We spent 3 nights in Noosa but didn't do much due to the weather. Yep the Goddesses of Rain have struck again, and we had 2 days of 'unseasonably bad rain'.

The main reason we stopped here was to go to Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo which we did on our last day as that's when the weather forecast was the best. Other than that we spent this time watching a ridiculous amount of DVDs, mooching about the town where we moved from one coffee shop to another. I brought the most expensive guide book on Thailand and we went out for dinner where we had a complete cheese overload with Halloumi, camembert and pizza. :)

This weekend is going to be bit of a party as we bumped into Gregg, Jet, Danni & Becs who we met in Cool Bananas and who are also travelling down the east coast. As we were all going to be in Brisbane on Friday night I Googled events down there and it turned out there was going to be an Oktoberfest. Awesome - sign us all up for that then. Jet will also be leaving on Saturday and heading off to India so it will be bit of a farewell drink too.

Australia Zoo

What a great day! Today we fed an Elephant, fed Kangaroos and cuddled a Koala. We watched a crocodile show where it propelled its whole body out of the water to catch it's prey, and Selena nearly trod on a Water Dragon which is a big lizard. I don't know who was more scared - Selena or the Dragon. I was completely unsympathetic and nearly wet myself laughing. :) We also saw some pretty unusal animals - Koalas, Komodo Dragons, Crocs, Cassowaries, weird dinosaur style birds, Red Pandas and Kangaroos.

There are a couple of strange facts about cuddling a Koala I thought I'd share with you all. You are only allowed to cuddle a Koala in Queensland, everywhere else you're only allowed to touch it. The second unusual fact, is that apparently you can catch Chlamydia from a Koala! Seriously what are these people doing to the poor little animals. Must be pretty brave - have you seen the size of their claws?!

However, the strangest thing about Australia Zoo is there's absolutely no mention that Steve Irwin has died. They play videos of him when you're on the coach and him presenting the films. There are posters of him absolutely everywhere, and there's even posters dotted all over the park set up so you can have your picture taken with him jumping out of 4x4s, or hugging him and the likes. They even have a story of his life and show him with his mates, his wedding day and taking over the zoo, but it all stops in 2006 and with no mention what-so-ever that he died. There's not even a memorial to him, the closest we could find was a mosaic donated to the Zoo in recognition of Steve Irwin's work. They also appear to be trying to make a new Paris Hilton out of Bindi Irwin (the daughter). She is probably 9 or 10 and has her own book range on wildlife, own clothing range with 'Bindi' written across all the T-shirts in diamantes, loads of other Bindi merchandise, and there were posters up everywhere advertising 'Bindi Irwin's first feature film' as she's starring in the latest Free Willy title. It's all very strange.

However, that doesn't take anything away from the wildlife and the rehabilitation work the Zoo does and I would recommend it to anyone that comes to Oz.

Xx.