Day 2 in Australia

Due to the time difference between New Zealand and Queensland I woke up unusually early. Checking the GPS I realized that it was almost sunrise (looking out the window confirmed that :-) so I snuck out and headed down toward the beach to check it out and get some pictures.

Just after the sunrise I suddenly saw some dorsal fins just beyond the surf break. Now I know that Australia is the home of all things deadly but I'm pretty sure they were dolphins. In fact, on the horizon is Moreton Island, home of the Tangalooma Wild Dolphin Resort.


Matthew and Jocelyn joined me at the beach and, like at every beach, we made a couple of sand structures.

Once we left Bribie Island we headed straight to Beerwah to visit the Australia Zoo, home of Steve Irwin the Crocodile Hunder. This is one of the few places that we knew we would visit in Australia. It is very well organized and clean. I don't think I saw a spider anywhere.

We participated in the elephant feeding. You show up at the appropriate time and they hand everyone a piece of fruit or vegetable. I got the impression that this is usually a very busy activity, but I think we eventually went through the line three or four times because they didn't have enough people to hand out all the food. As with any tourist attraction all the good photo taking spots are restricted to staff of the photo shop so I didn't get any good feeding pictures (that's my story and I'm sticking to it). A lot of people were nervous about the elephants and had a hard time sticking food up their nose. The elephants are a bit dirty and Matthew complained all day about walking around with elephant snot on his shirt.

The highlight of the day at the Australia Zoo is the Crocoseum. Not necessarily because of the show, but more because they perform all the shows sequentially in a shaded arena with hard seat backs. You get to sit for a couple of hours in comfort while they show you birds, snakes, tigers, and crocodiles. During the snake show they had a few people walking through the crocoseum showing some snakes up close. Judging by the shrieks from the crowd there are people who are not as comfortable with snakes as Matthew.

The main event at the Crocoseum is the croc show where they lure a large crocodile out into the pond and throw food at it. I was surprised to see how agressive it was. It basically chased the trainer around getting the occasional chunk of meat. I always picture crocodiles as lazy and slow but this one was actively persuing anything in or near the water and was quite fast when it decided to lunge.

As with the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary the day before, the Australia Zoo has a large kangaroo petting and feeding area. Any plans that Jocelyn had to try kangaroo meat in Australia were lost.

Near the end of the day we went to the cheetah display where they had two cheetah cubs. We were informed as we arrived at the zoo that if we were at the cheetah enclosure when they were escorted away that we could get a closer look. Indeed we did.

When we left the Australia Zoo we headed north, not entirely sure where we would end up. We stopped at an information booth along the way and talked ourselves into taking a trip to the Lady Musgrave Island in the Great Barrier Reef in the morning from the town of 1770. We were still quite far away so we just kept driving. By the time we reached Bundaberg it was dark and we didn't have a place to stay. When I stopped for gas I called some numbers of hotels around 1770 and got through a few numbers before anyone even answered. It turned out that the last number I called was the same company that runs the boat trip we booked for the next morning and she easily guessed who I was. Fortunately they had a room available but we weren't expecting to arrive for another hour or two. They left the key under the mat and told us we could pay for the room down at the dock in the morning. Now all we had to do was find the room.