Day 5 - Thursday, April 11, 2013

I had to get up early  today in order to catch the bus that was to take us to the Australian Zoo - Home of the Crocodile Hunter. IT WAS UNBELIEVABLE!! First off, the workers at this zoo were so friendly and knew so much about the animals they were handling. They were allowed to take the animals out of their cages and walk many of them around the zoo for people to see and do photo ops. with. It was so cool!!

The first animal encounter I had was with a white cockatoo named Anthony. He talked to us and everything! Then just down the path we ran into a shingle lizard. This crazy guy was a little weird but I touched him! I also got to pet a koala. They are incredibly soft and fuzzy. We headed towards the back of the zoo so that we could be at the elephant exhibit in time to feed them. On the way there, we past some HUGE Tortoises. We even got to see them move! We also passed through the Kangaroo Heaven and pet them. As well as the Aviary. It amazed me at how close all of the animals would let us get to them.

 


When we finally made it to the elephant area, it was just about time to feed them so we got in line. (I was third!!). It was so cool to let the elephant eat the food from my hand, but he slobbered on it - a lot. It was gross but luckily I had some hand sanitizer in my bag. We spent some time seeing  the other animals around the zoo but had to head to the Crocoseum for the Wild life show. This show was a mix of Birds and Crocs. It was really cool to see the giant birds. They also fed the crocs and showed them off like Steve Irwin (Crocodile Hunter) used to do when he was alive. After the show, we ate our lunches and I got in line to hold my koala friend. We did some shopping around in the gift shops and saw some other animals while we waited for my koala photo to be developed. It began to rain on and off in little spurts of down pours and although we had ponchos on, we still got pretty wet. After I picked up my photo, we went through the Walabi enclosure, where I was able to feed one. He/She ate right out of my hand!

Our time at the zoo was almost up, but we were able to swing by the wildlife hospital. This was probably the worst way to end the day. It was so sad to see all of the sick koalas. One was even about to undergo surgery.

When I got home, my host family took me shopping at one of the bigger malls in the area. I enjoyed walking around and looking at the stores that at first seemed no different than the ones in the states, but after I began to look at them more closely, they were way different. I didnt buy anything - YES! you read that correctly - I went shopping and didnt purchase a thing!! But I still had fun walking around and taking in all the sights.