I can now die a happy man as my life long dream has been accomplished! Yesterday we went to my idol Steve Irwin's famous Australian zoo! (Those of you who aren't true fans probably refer to him by his television show, "The Croc Hunter.) I have been an avid lover of the show since about 1999 when a friend's brother showed it to me over a couple of beers in Montreal. By the time I graduated high school it was a tradition that whenever I had a spare, a group of us would rush to the nearest McDonalds and then over to a house where we could watch Steve get bitten and mauled by whatever animal he happened to be handling! As a planet, we were all saddened by the death of Steve last year when a sting ray stung him through the heart but his memory will live on forever.
Oh yeah, I have not seen rain in Australia like I did on the day we went to the zoo. Here's us in our official Australian zoo ponchos! So cool.
I thought I'd show the bird pics first since they're the least interesting.
In case you're new, this is a tiger.
Feeding time!
This cheetah can get from 0 to 100 in under 3 seconds. He's so fast that the keepers can't even stop him when they let him out for walking tours! Instead they have to run along side the cheetah and yell out, "I'm sorry but I can't stop him he's too strong!" whenever someone runs up to take a picture.
This is a Tasmanian Devil. I know, I know, it doesn't look like the cartoon character but this thing was still pretty bad ass and it didn't stop moving the whole time I was there!
Wait for it.........................wait for it.........................A DINGO ATE MY BABY!!!!
Apparently you don't need to run in zig zags if you're escaping a croc. While you wouldn't want to try and out swim one in the water they can only run fast for a few seconds......but I still wouldn't want to test that theory. On second thought scratch that, just stay away from them all together as they have jaws that can crush something with the force of 300lbs per square inch.
Yep, it's a Koala.
Whoever said that slow and steady wins the race has obviously never met this guy. If I didn't see him blink I would have thought that he was made of plastic.
So bad ass!
This is Agro the Alligator, he's been on the show quite a few times because of his temper.
I stayed in a hostel that was a two minute walk from this beach, it was beautiful!
Since I had the outdoor bug from my visit to the zoo yesterday I decided to go on a nature walk this morning.
I ran into this meter-long lizard about halfway through my hike so I dropped all my stuff and took off into the woods after it. It only took a few minutes to realize that I was chasing an unknown animal into the brush in a country that has eight of the ten most poisonous snakes in the world, alone and miles from the nearest hospital, and that I was not in fact Steve Irwin. So I made a speedy retreat.
