The Australia Zoo

Just to make sure we got enough of the Australian animals, we took a trip to The Australia Zoo.  This was a zoo originally started, under a different name, by Steve Irwin’s family when he was just a boy.  Over the years, the family grew the zoo, and on Steve and Terri’s honeymoon, they shot the pilot for The Crocodile Hunter, which became a huge hit.  They took some of the profits from the show and re-invested them into the zoo, and now it has become the huge beautiful zoo it is today.  They could have just called this Steve Irwin’s zoo, they had his picture everywhere, and half the souvenirs had him on them.  Not that we minded, we loved Steve and were happy to see him remembered in such a way.

One of the unique things about this zoo is that they would bring the animals out walking on leashes for you to see up close.  Some of them you could even touch gently.

There were two 5-month old tiger cubs being walked around.  They were just as silly and energetic as regular kittens.

This wombat only had one eye, but she was still super cute.  I was able to touch her, and she felt bristly, like a pig but slightly softer.

You could also pay extra (between $25 and $200 depending on the animal) to have a 15 minute up close encounter with the animals.  We didn’t pay extra, but saw the people having the giraffe encounter, where they got to feed them.  We couldn’t get quite as close, but it still brought them close enough we could see just how big their heads really are!  At least as big as a horse, which shouldn’t be a surprise considering how big they are.

Even without paying extra, there were plenty of places where we could get up close.  Bindy’s island had a life-size replica of the tree-house she used on her show years ago, and had 4 lemurs that wandered around freely (but monitored by trainers).  One walked so close to Mom that she was able to just bend down and touch his tail.  Then the trainer yelled at us, apparently you aren’t supposed to touch them, but Mom said he was very soft.

There were a few things to see within the tree-house, but the best part was the view from the top.

See the lemur just chillin' out on the sign behind us?

They also had an area where you could pet and feed kangaroos and wallabies. The wallabies were not being social, but the trainer said they feel just as soft as the kangaroos.  The koala sanctuary only had grey kangaroos, but this one also had the iconic red kangaroos. 

This silly boy couldn't seem to get comfortable.

The koala area had a few koalas you could touch (but not cuddle), and had many up in real trees. 

Look closely at this pic before scrolling down any further.  See if you can spot the koala before I show you where he is.

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Even though they had signs below saying that there was a koala in that tree, they were still hard to find if they were sleeping in a leafy spot.

 

Hard to spot, isn't he?  Also, koalas sleep in funny positions.

I got a big kick out of eating lunch, more or less, with this koala.  His tree was surrounded by lunch tables, so we were still observing the animals as we ate.  Some views overlooked the crocodiles, but I liked this guy better.

We were very excited to finally see a Cassowary, after all that time we tried unsuccessfully to spot them in the wild.

Can you see the horn-like protrusion on the top of his head?

Probably can't tell the scale here, but he's got the body, and size, of an emu.

There were way too many animals for us to share them all with you.  But I’ll leave you with a parting picture of these cuties.

Red panda.  When he went down the tree limb, he loosely gripped it with his back paws, then kind of slid down it, pulling a little with his front paws.

There were three otters, but the move so fast they are hard to capture. They made little crying sounds like a newborn puppy.