Crikey! What a Zoo!

Steve Irwin, lets applaud the man. Australia Zoo is just north of the town of Beerwah on the aptly named “Steve Irwin Highway”.  The sun has well and truly gone now and we are into persistent rain and cyclone season, but this wasn’t going to hold us back.

 Steve wanted to create the worlds best zoo and he’s nailed it right on the head. Paignton zoo is good but this is on steroids. There crocs literally around every corner and session times where you can meet all the animals and get some cool pictures with an animal of your choice, such as our one below:

The zoo sticks to its ozzie routes to mostly celebrate the creatures that reside on its shores, but occasionally dropping in the crowd pleasers in the form of elephants and performing tigers.

  

Whilst we’re talking about tigers I need to have a rant and should join the zoo in spreading the fact that only 5000 exist in the wild around the world and on average one tiger is killed everyday for use as souvenirs but predominately for use in Chinese medicine. I cant help noticing as we travel around how much damage China does to the world and from what you see of the tourists pointing, smiling and taking photos of the medicine jars on display that they must recognize from back home, they do not display a single element of remorse or responsibility. Again another example today, like with the turtles the other night, of why we should be ashamed of our human nature. But the fact is that we’re not. As a race we’ll still by furniture from illegally cut down rainforests, we’ll still eat shark fin soup and we’ll still strive to collect as many trophy tusks as we can. Certainly gave us something to think about.

 

 

The focus of the zoo was the impressive Crocosuem, a stadium that puts most league 1 and 2 football clubs to shame – yes I’m looking at you Oldham.

Here they hold performances of the extreme sides of the animals that live at the zoo. Accompanied by ACDC, flashing lights and a big screen as macaw parrots sored around the stadium swerving in between the thousands of heads. Mind blowing. The pinnacle was obviously the massive 20 ft croc that chases the zoo keepers around the pen as they tempt him to pounce out the water in attack mode.

One enclosure allowed people to walk through and hand feed kangaroos.

Obviously I had to check it out first to make sure it was safe and nutritionally balanced…

At the end of the day, soaking wet through, we left with a massive appreciation for the legends that are Steve Irwin and his family. What a bloke and what a legacy to leave behind. I left with two lessons thanks to Steve.

The first - If you play with fire eventually you will get burned.

The second – Never give up on what you believe in. Clips of his shows were played all over the zoo and watching them back makes you realise how enthusiastic and dedicated he was to saving and preserving the wildlife he loved.

A real inspiration, who knows how much more he could have done f he’d had more time. 

Bravo Stevo.