Day 87 -Australia Zoo - Wednesday 11th January 2012

The alarm clock sounded at 6.15am so we dragged our bleary eyed selves out of bed and got ready for our day at Australia Zoo. Come 7.45 we were on the Greyhound with Danny and Nikki and Kelly (Danny's sister) and her boyfriend Chris bound for the zoo and arrived a little after 9am.

Australia Zoo is hugely famous in Australia mainly for the reason that it is owned by the Irwin family and Steve Irwin, the Croc hunter as he was known, used to run the show before he died a few years back - now his wife and 2 kids are heavily involved and even do the croc show that Steve was so famous for.

First up we headed to the lizard section and marvelled at how huge they were and even got to stroke one. Then we went onto the tortoises live show where a lady talked through the details of the giant Aldabran Land Tortoises whilst she feed them - they were pretty huge and can live up to 150 years. Once the show was done we hopped on the shuttle bus to arrive just in time for the elephant feeding - it was great fun, you just take a handful of raw veg and wait for the elephants to suck it up with their trunk before shoving it into their mouths! I loved it and went up about 10 times - by the end my hand was covered in slimy elephant spit! When we'd finished this it was time to get to the crocoseum for the 11am wildlife warriors show; this is the show that the zoo is famous for and it's got to be said that it was pretty amazing. It was hosted by a team of zoo keepers plus Terri Irwin (Steve's wife) and their 2 kids, Bindi and Robert - they were great and very entertaining but both Ad and I felt a little bit sad that their dad wasn't there too. The show started with some amazing looking birds flying around the stadium and huge snakes swimming their way through the water pool. One of the birds even went to a complete stranger and took a $5 note from him - genius; we could definitely do with one of them in expensive Australia! Then the show and action got started with the introduction of the saltwater deadly killer croc. What followed was a series of stunts involving bits of food being dangled for Rex to jump up and get along with a commentary on what not to do with saltwater crocs if you come across one (basically everything they were doing!). It was really impressive and we particularly liked the bit when Rex decided to do a death roll to get a leg of a pig!

With the show done we walked to the kid's farm area and patted the piglets, sheep and goats - the piglets were so cute and Nikki and I were both very tempted to put one in our bag to take home with us.

We strolled to the Africa section of the zoo which is set up so it looks exactly like an African plain and here we found giraffes, rhinos and a baby rhino and zebra all mingling in together. The sun was at its hottest and the sky clear so we grabbed an ice cream to help cool us down and watched the animals grazing.

Up next was the Tigers and although they had no official show the gamekeepers were playing with the tigers and getting them to jump after balls into the pool. It was brilliant seeing huge tigers acting like household dogs - play fighting with the gamekeepers, chasing balls around, and jumping into the water and swimming right next to the glass!

On the walk back we went through the kangaroo enclosure; this was my favourite part as it is just an open area where the roo's hop about and chill out and you can sit with them, stroke them and feed them! I found a really cute one who put his little paws on my hand whilst he was eating!! Another animal I want to take home with me - my bag is going to be heavy……

We then went through the reptile centre and looked at all the various reps that can kill you in Australia - it seems that everything can kill you here! After this we wondered through to see Ad's favourite animal the wombat and then headed to the koala section. You can cuddle a koala and get your picture taken for $20 but when we got there the poor little koala had obviously had his fair share of cuddles and was getting a bit hot so the gamekeepers had him held against a fan - it was a funny sight. To be honest we didn't need to pay $20 as when we went through the actual section you can stroke and pat them on these little trees; they are really soft and again really cute. And apparently they sleep for about 19 hours a day and spend the rest of the time just eating - sounds like a great life!

With the day drawing to a close we headed to see the cassowary on the way to the exit and got on the bus to take us back to Brisbane. Once home, Ad knocked up some tasty fajitas and we washed them down with a couple of bottles of xxxx.