Aly's Blog: Crikey!

The boys were so tired last night they fell asleep at dinner. Jeff carried Thomas back and Kyle managed to walk to the hotel. An hour down the road this morning, north of Brisbane, we arrived at Australia Zoo. It is over 100 acres and 1200 animals making other zoos look like little parks. I love the Calgary Zoo and have spent many hours there, and now see that the spaces we keep the animals in is ridiculously small. The elephants, 3 females all over 50yrs old, at Australia Zoo have 5 acres to be viewed in and at night go out to another 70 acres to roam. For a Saturday the place was not busy at all which was nice.

Most of the animals are roaming in spaces the public walk right into so we pet and fed kangaroos! Pet and saw many of the cutest Koala bears ever including a 6 month old baby, saw the crocodile show with 3000psi of pressure from a huge, crushing jaw, viewed the elephants being checked and playing in the water over 3M deep, a few of the worlds most deadly snakes and much more. There is a new part of the zoo just opened with an African Savanah and a baby Rhino with 3 others, zebras and giraffes. It is well laid out for education and experience that is for sure. There were tortoises there over 100 yrs old and one of the zoos original crocodiles born in 1930.

Steve Irwin's legacy is very strong there and his daughter Bindi seems to be the new face of the zoo used in almost all the marketing. Unfortunately, we did not get to see her or her brother Robert, they must not have known we were coming :) I am glad we went, but would not likely go again. Crikey, it's expensive! Our admission was all part of our trip so we didn't pay the full rate, and we were shocked to see that a day for a family is $172, 3 basic meals were $36 and an annual family pass there is $425!! I suppose they have to pay the staff and procure the right people and food for animals but seriously.

Ironically the boys and I have been freezing here at 26-28 degrees and high humidity, except on the black asphalt of the zoo today. Seems absurd but I guess Fiji was hotter than we realized and we all wanted to wear long pants and sweaters this morning and shivered at dinner last night ordering hot drinks to warm up. Tomorrow when we head north again we will be getting to hotter temps on Hamilton Island, named for our relatives in Vernon I am sure ;).

Forgot to mention yesterday about the serious floods here in Brisbane earlier this year. There were photos of the water level around The Wheel of Brisbane and it reached just to the bottom of the lowest gondola of the ride. To explain that is difficult but think of the Bow River in Calgary rising about 40ft above normal high mark. That entire South Park we were at yesterday was under water and the state of the park today is absolutely pristine. Not sure what the clean up efforts might have looked like but great job!

I forgot to ask at the zoo today what the flood effects were there but I know the outlying areas were also hit very hard, although we saw no visual signs so far. We were all quite tired and slow today and still managed lots of walking. Kyle is fighting a bit of a cold now and he and Thomas' sun burns are already peeling and healing. On to the next place for 5 more days of white beach and relaxing.....