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| Australia Zoo |
This was by far one of our most anticipated - and in actuality, one of our favorite days of the trip! We really tip our hats to the efforts and opportunities of the Australia Zoo!!!
Okay, so today was an awesome one!!! I have a lot of raving to do! First of all, the Australia Zoo may not have the largest variety of animals in it, but it has by far the most phenomenal enclosures, the most loving animal keepers, the most interactive exhibits, and the healthiest, liveliest looking animals – we LOVED it and had a truly wonderful time!
We arrived early and were sent directly to the information desk to finish our paperwork for our tiger photo shoot and organized our day with the office. We spent the next hour checking our amazingly happy, healthy looking wombats – who really are like furry pigs crossed with guinea pigs…or something… they had huge, expansive enclosures. We checked out the snakes – with captions that read just like Steve Irwin would have said them. And we visited the aviary that had just fed the birds – so they were all crowded round, front and center. We visited some of the crocs and read the different stories of how Steve caught them or saved them in various situations and then we headed back to information for….!!! Our tiger shoot!!!
So! We were met by a photographer who took us by golf cart through all the “personnel only” gates and brought us back to the Tiger Temple – where we waited in the wings for Singha – a five year old female adult Sumatran tiger. They briefed us on how to approach her and what to do and then sent me in to pet her and start taking pictures. Singha did not really agree with what was going on and was very restless, so the keepers would try to occupy her as you slid into the shot, make sure she was calm, the keepers would back out for a millisecond while they clicked and clicked pictures and then keepers would dive back in with grass to bribe her if she moved. Daniel and I each managed to get a quick quick individual shot, but a shot of us together was not happening, we kept having to stand up and move back. You would think we might be annoyed – but really it was awesome – it showed how tremendously respectful the keepers and the zoo is of her “wildness” and her potential power that they were so careful and that it didn’t go “as clockwork” to me, proved the naturalness of all of it…
So they decided to switch gears and bring out a different tiger – so really, we got to pet two! Bashii was a two year old male who was a cub of three who had been brought to the zoo from Indonesia – and was the first set of cubs to be sent out of the region in about 30 years. He was must calmer and more docile. They said that in general female tigers are much more energetic and restless, but that Bashii is very chill. So, we moved in for our couple shot and got to spend a good bit more time petting him and taking pictures – they even gently lifted up his tail and had us feel that too. It was really cool. And the entire time, the other two cubs were moaning and yelling….as if “why don’t we get whatever our brother’s getting too?!?” very jealously.
So, after the tiger shoot we headed into the Crocoseum for the show – since it was a local school holiday, Terri, Bindi, Robert and Wes performed the show!! It was pretty neat! They were working with a croc named Monty and things didn't go entirely as planned – the croc moved extra fast and wasn't very cooperative, so it was really fun to watch them “make it work” and roll with it – very fun! According to Terri “Unky Wes” even taught the kids some new words (when he cursed) – quite funny! After some tense moments with Monty they ended the show with clear messages against croc farming and buying croc products because most of them are derived from inhumane croc farm processes, etc.
The whole first half of the day I continually found myself a bit choked up – and Daniel yet leaning in and saying “this is really sad” – it’s still very devastating that Steve Irwin died and so heartbreaking – although his family and crew are doing a phenomenal job preserving his legacy and using it to continue the zoo’s message and direction.
After a quick lunch in a nicely varied food court that overlooked some of the croc enclosures, we met up with the photographer for the red panda shoot and were again whisked away for another amazing encounter. The red pandas were absolutely awesome! Even Daniel keeps saying…they really were pretty darn cute… The encounter has only existed for a few weeks so the fellas are still being trained. The goal is to feed them by hand, not from the bowl, and to keep them separated while they eat (if the were trying to get food from the same person they started getting feisty and might fight each other…which somehow I ended up in the middle of toward the end!). We were allowed to pet them, coax them into our laps, etc!
So, we entered the enclosure, and I sat on a bench along with a teenage girl doing the encounter and Daniel volunteered to sit on the ground. We were each handed a bowl full of fruit pieces – pears, apples, bananas, carrots, sweet potatoes, grapes, etc. and were told to feed them. Yoda went to Daniel instantly and was very friendly with him and Pasang eventually made his way to the other girl and started working with her. Once Daniel ran out of apples, Yoda made his way to me and I managed to scoot over and try to get him to jump up on the edge of the bench and then walk into my lap (their claws are really sharp, so if they use your legs to jump up it’s bad). All the while we got to pet them, feed them, look at their cute faces, and turn when the photographer asked so we could get some good pictures. It was really awesome! I had a few tense moments – Yoda lunged for the bowl at one point and I had to pry him out of it and as Pasang finished the particular fruits he liked out of the other girl’s bowl I found myself with two red pandas in my lap lounging from my hands and the bowl I was holding, but it was a lot of fun – they’re adorable critters and have really cute, expressive faces! They’re soft but also have thick, slightly bristly fur. The whole thing was really cool – it was something I had persuaded Daniel into at the last minute and he had caved and whenever it’s come up since he’s agreed that he’s really glad we did it! : )
We spent the rest of our afternoon feeding the ridiculously afternoon siesta lazy kangaroos and wallabies who at that point were pretty well fed and in mood for a nap. We patted another koala in the open koala walkabout space – and actually saw a koala drop down from a limb, walk across the sidewalk and hop into a different tree!, I discovered the Cassowaries are intrigued when you make a clicking noise and come out for photos, we saw the tiger play show in the Tiger Temple and watched the trainers play with the tigers as you would play with a kitty and yarn – only these guys jumped six or seven feet in the air to go after the milk cartons taped to sticks or dove across the pool to catch the plastic baggy stick toys, and we watched the trainers feed the adorable Southeastern Asian Otters who baaed and yelled for their every nip of food and eat up to eight times a day.
It was really a wonderful day – we loved how open the exhibits were, how healthy and happy the animals seemed, and the overall message of the zoo. It was just an awesome and inspiring day! Kudos to the Australia Zoo and the wonderful Irwin Family! : )
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