Crikey!

Stine and me woke up early in a massive hangover to go to Australia Zoo. Remember that crazy guy from the Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin, who did all those insane stunts with dangerous animals, and in the end died wrestling a stingray a few years ago? Anyway, Australia Zoo is owned by his family. 

I wasn't that excited about going to the zoo. I always prefer seeing animals in the wild. But Australia Zoo was a really pleasant surprise. Conservation was a big element in the zoo and there was lots of information of how the zoo works to protect the species, and even how anybody can help. I thought maybe I should adopt a koala or a little monkey. We saw many animals we had never seen before. We also went to see this show where some crazy guy imitating Steve Irwin jumped in the pool with a big crocodile. Crikey!

Too much eucalyptus leaves?

A wombat

The animals aren't held in cages, instead they have big areas where they can roam free. There were for instance these lizards everywhere in the park, happily running around free. We couldn't help but wonder how it works, why don't the monkeys and such just run away or go and say hi to the kangaroos for example.  They just stay in their own little area with no cages.

The world's most venomous snake. One bite can kill 10 men.

Talking about snakes, I remember before leaving to Australia how everybody was warning me about all the snakes. I've been here for 18 months and I've seen only ONE small pathetic snake in the wild!

We also got to touch many of the animals at the zoo. If you paid a little extra you got to hold a crocodile, a koala, a snake or other animals. I held a koala!!!! it was one of my must-dos on this trip. It was so cute and cuddly that I didn't want to hand it back to the ranger. Holding a snake on the other hand was so disgusting that I didn't breathe the whole time and just wanted the photographer to take the snap quickly so I could get rid of the slithery thing.

Australia Zoo was huge and we spent the whole day there. It was quite expensive but worth every cent, considering that most of it if not all goes into conservation.