Australia Zoo

Some of our Christmas gifts this year were tickets to Australia Zoo and Underwater World (the latter I'll write about in another post).  I had never been to either so I was very excited about these outings, and even more excited to know that they would be Evan's very first experiences at both a zoo and an aquarium!

We enjoyed the day at Australia Zoo on New Year's Eve day with John's brother, sister-in-law and our niece (Eva), but we left Emma with Nana and Auntie Sarah since we knew this full day outing would be easier without a young baby in tow.  That was pretty sad for me to leave her though, as it was the longest time I'd been away from her so far!

The day was pretty overcast and rainy, however it was just a light drizzle most of the time that helped keep the temperatures nice and cool.  This was good since most all of the zoo was outdoors.   We had brought a small umbrella, but when we arrived and it was raining we figured we might as well buy a big umbrella from the gift shop before they sold out, figuring that it would serve as a nice souvenir and could be used for shade if it was really sunny as well.  Amazingly, we didn't' need it for either, as it just stayed nice and cloudy with minimal rain/drizzle all day!

We started out by petting a lizard and koala at the entrance.  Then we made our way past American alligators, to the wombats and snakes, and then on to the birds, kangaroos and koalas.  Evan was loving being able to run around, and even when we were in the kangaroo enclosure (where he was allowed to pet the kangaroos), he was most interested in chasing bush turkeys!  (That trend continued throughout our day at the zoo and rest of our time in Australia...)

After exploring that first part of the zoo we headed to the food court to get a bite to eat before the Bindi and the Croc show started at mid-day.  We got to see Bindi sing with her dancers some silly/cute animal-themed songs.  The last song she sang was actually kind of sad, although it was an upbeat song, since it was about her dad.  The big screen above her showed photos of her younger self and her dad doing a variety of things (typically with a variety of animals).  I don't know how easy it would be for me to sing an upbeat song like that every day if I had lost my dad the way she did!

Bindi and her dancers are up on the Australia Zoo stage

After her show was over, the croc show began with a wide variety of big birds flying around the "Crocoseum", including one black cockatoo that flew to the lady sitting right behind us (right over Evan and John's heads!).   Then Bindi, her mum Terri, and her little brother Robert came out and started the crocodile portion of the show.  Robert is 10 years old now and this is his first summer feeding the crocs...he fed a small one, but it was still a croc!  Then the big croc (called Mossman) came out and Terri (and some of the other zoo staff) taunted it to have a feed and to come up out of the water, by stomping on the ground on the water's edge or splashing in the water and dangling food for it.  Bindi and Terri fed it a rat off of an elevated platform and then they also showed us the death rolls the croc does when it catches prey (by tossing it a pig on a rope).   Pretty scary and aggressive animals they are!

Robert, Bindi, and Terri starting the croc show

Terri and Bindi feeding the croc from the elevated platform

At the beginning of the show, Evan seemed awfully sleepy (as it was almost his normal nap time), but by the end of the show he had gotten a second wind and just kept going the rest of the day (hardly even spending much time in the stroller)!  We walked through the rest of the crocodile area (where we saw Bindi and Robert leaving the zoo for the day...they walked right by us and Bindi said "hi" to me...I felt so special...hehe), saw the dingos and huge tortoises (where I learned the difference between a turtle and tortoise), and then hopped on the zoo shuttle (which we told Evan it was a shuttle "train" and he loved it!) to get a tour of the zoo without extra walking.  We took the shuttle down to the tigers and beginning of the Africa section of the zoo.  The walk from that stop to the end of Africa (to see zebra and giraffes) was quite long, though, with not much to look at.  This is a new area of the zoo, and they are still working on building it up I think.  Nonetheless, we were all really wiped out.  So we got on the shuttle again and went back to the food court to get some ice cream and souvenirs, let Evan and Eva ride on the animal-themed "tea cups" ride, and then called it a day.

That croc does look pretty scary!

On the zoo shuttle "train"

While I think the point of seeing all of the animals escaped Evan, he did enjoy seeing some of them (the ones that were easy to see...he didn't have the patience or enough understanding of the situation to look for the animals that weren't in obvious view) and he seemed to like the zoo experience overall; especially riding on the shuttle "train" and spending the day with his cousin Eva who he held hands with and gave lots of hugs to throughout the day.  The highlights for me were the Croc show and seeing all of the Steve Irwin memorabilia, and seeing my son enjoy his first visit to a zoo...the Australia Zoo! :)

Hand and foot prints of the whole Irwin family (made on my birthday in 1999, although Robert's were added later in 2010)