Day 10 - Thatchersontour - Australia Zoo

Today we visited Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo which is something I have been really looking forward to! It's a couple of hours up the East Coast from where we are staying but it was well worth the trek. We got to see lots of Aussie wildlife that we haven't been able to see in the wild which was amazing.

One of the big highlights was definitely the Wildlife Warriors Show. We got to see a variety of amazing birds including an Andean condor. We are fortunate to have already seen condors in Peru however seeing them up close makes you appreciate how big they really are. The different birds flew all around the Crocoseum which was pretty cool. The highlight of the show however was definitely the big old crocodile. Three extremely crazy guys got extremely close to the enormous croc to show us a variety of behaviours the crocodile displays in the wild including the almighty death roll. It was an incredibly tense few hours and I was literally on the edge of my seat. It is a wonder how one of them didn't lose an arm!

The tiger demo with Reggie the Sumatran tiger was also very impressive. Pacified with some milk the keepers demonstrated how they undertake medical checks on the tigers such as looking at their teeth and eyes. We also got to hand feed kangaroos, see more cute cuddly koalas and wombats as well as lots of other native Australian wildlife.

Towards the end of the day, Kevin and Lucy booked themselves in for the koala experience for some koala cuddles so Simon and I decided to do a tour of the Wildlife Hospital which is next to the zoo. What was meant to be a 30 minute group tour turned into an hour long private tour which was amazing. Our tour guide Brandon was so knowledgable and he took us around each part of the Wildlife hospital, including the outside koala area where they slowly rehabilitate koalas so they can be released back into the wild. Whilst we were there, a tiny baby roo whose mum had been killed by a car had been taken in and the vets were looking at her. The baby roo was only 6 months old and didn't even have its fur yet. The vet talked us through what she was doing to treat the roo and even let us stroke its soft velvety body. Such an amazing experience!Читать далее