Happy Birthday to Me; Or get a load a that little beauty!

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Yesterday was my birthday.  I’m now three dozen years old.  Yikes!

We went to the Australia Zoo, otherwise known as the Steve Irwin Zoo.  Crickey!  It was really great.  We got on the train about 8:00am and made it to our stop at Beerwah just about 9:30, there was a shuttle from the train station that took us over to the zoo a few kilometers away. 

From the moment you get on the shuttle, you’re inundated with images of Steve Irwin.  He’s truly an Australian hero and the sense of loss is palpable.  Leah and I couldn’t help but feel a little sad every time we saw another photo of him.

The park sits on about seventy acres and is in a constant state of expansion.  There are plans to almost double

the size of the park within a few years and there will be a train stop directly at the zoo.  It took us hours to see the whole thing.

Steve Irwin’s parents started the zoo in 1970 and used to be called the Beerwah Reptile Park.  It was used primarily as a rehab facility for problem crocodiles.  Steve and Teri Irwin took over operations in 1992 and renamed it.  Crocodiles still dominate the place; most of the grounds are croc enclosures.  The rest is mostly devoted to Australian animals but they do have some other really excellent enclosures devoted to tigers and elephants.  The Tiger enclosure in particular was one of the nicest I’ve ever seen. 

The animals were almost all easily seen and seemed at ease, the cages were spacious and clean.  Most of the animals were active and busy going about their business.  The enclosure for kangaroos was a stand out.  There was a large area, about a third of the park, devoted to kangaroos.  The whole thing was enclosed in a fence but you can walk through without anything between you and the animals.  There was a vending machine with food so you could hand feed the ‘roos.  It was awesome.  Many of the larger ones were sleeping or resting in the shade.  It was hot, about 34 degrees and the sun was intense.   While we walked through we managed to pet two that were sitting around.  They were juveniles about the size of a medium dog.  They are really soft and well used to people.  They’re hand fed all the time, so as long as you don’t make too many sudden movements they’ll walk right up to you.  It was cool.

Most of the marquee animals were featured, koalas, wallabys, kangaroos, snakes, crocs, echidnas, lizards, birds (kookaburras are really cute and cassowaries are huge) and Dingoes.  Dingoes are beautiful and a little smaller than Stanley.  They had a great habitat and seemed quite at ease. 

There is a big amphitheatre in the center of the park where they have the “wildlife Warriors” show.  We sat down in the shade at eleven to watch.  The show features many of the parks animals, birds, elephants and snakes, with the main portion featuring a saltwater crocodile feeding.  Before they brought the croc out they put up a “little beauty” warning on the big screen, hilarious. The guys running the show did their best Steve impersonations and fed scraps of meat to a huge croc.  I managed to get a bunch of great pictures of it jumping out of the water. 

In fact I managed a bunch of great pictures of many of the animals at the park.  The cages are set up really well and even when the animals were hiding in the shade you could get a good look at them.  You can get within a couple of feet of most of them and you sort of don’t notice that the cages are there at all. 

We ate some lunch after the show and popped into the gift shop.  There you could buy has just about anything you could ever want with Steve Irwin’s image on it.  We got a coozie (called a stubby cooler here) and a couple of fridge magnets.  As you might have guessed Bindi’s image is almost as popular.  They really are pushing her as the face of the park.  We didn’t see her in person though.  Bummer.

While we were in the gift shop, the skies opened up.  I haven’t seen a rain storm that intense in a long time.  It rained buckets for an hour and a half.  We took the opportunity to check the Crocodile Hunter Museum and the memorial for Steve.  People from all over the world sent items in memoriam and they are on display here.  It’s poignant. 

Tired of waiting for the rain to stop we bought a couple of $2 ponchos and set back off into the park.   We managed to pat a koala but missed the chance to have our picture taken holding one.  The park must have twenty or thirty koalas that were busy after the rain stuffing themselves with leaves.  I guess they mostly sleep and eat.  They’re amazingly adorable.

We left the zoo and hopped the train back to Brisbane.  We showered up and headed over to Fortitude Valley, a neighborhood known for its restaurants and nightclubs.  We found a nice place to have dinner (in fact most of the menus we looked at were more reasonable than most we’ve seen, we’ll be going here often) and had a bite and a few drinks.  The restaurant had outdoor seating and while we ate a band started playing in the square.  It made me realize how much I have been missing live music.

In fact it made me feel a bit homesick.  Homesickness comes for both of us in little waves.  Mostly we’re fine but once in a while something sets off a little pang.  The band did it for me.  I really miss being with The Nod.  It’s not only the shows either, I miss the practices too.  I’m not sure how long it will be before I get back on stage and I miss it.  It was nice to hear a live band for the first time here. 

We were both tired and we called it a night early.   It was a great birthday.

Some observations for today:

-the legal drinking age is 18 so the streets are wild with kids getting drunk.

-Girls really dress to the nines to go out.  You see tons of really short prom style party dresses everywhere.  Going out is not casual.

-Terri Irwin has a line of clothing called “The Cougar Collection”.

-Beet root is a common hamburger topping. Also they love a burger with a fried egg on top.

-Prostitution is legal in Queensland, the Sunday paper has an explanation of the law in the personals section.