I am one of the late Steve Irwin’s greatest fans, although at first I was unsure that his larger-than-life-persona was not just that; a per­sona.  Some­thing he took off like a hat when he got home.  I soon learned my mis­take by watch­ing one epis­ode of his pro­gram where his wife and he came across a large pod of whales that had beached them­selves and lay dying in the sun.  Steve was heart­broken and it was very clear to me that he was genu­inely upset.  Steve Irwin, I real­ised, was the real deal.

So when, on the coach on way to the zoo, they showed parts of a movie about Steve I had to bite back the tears one sheds when a per­sonal hero and icon speaks to you from bey­ond the grave.  Luck­ily I was wear­ing my sunglasses.  The coach in ques­tion was the free trans­fer from the towns sur­round­ing the zoo and had picked us up from out­side our hostel in Caloundra north of Bris­bane.  That hostel was called City Back­pack­ers alike a motel and had a real (shock!) bed.  It was also clin­ic­ally clean, how­ever the recep­tion left a little to be desired and we had a hard yomp from the coach stop to the front door.

We arrived at the zoo.

In my coun­try, zoos are places with cages and anim­als are let out once or twice a day.  At Aus­tralia Zoo the anim­als have a lot of space to run around in and all look very fit and healthy.  The exper­i­ence is very well man­aged and highly branded, which if you don’t feel the same about the Irwin’s as I, will prob­ably start to grate very quickly.  There are lots of “crikey!” slo­gans on things and all the staff are wear­ing the “tra­di­tional” Cro­codile Hunter shirts.  This all pays homage to Steve, but I must admit to being a little “freaked” by the mar­ket­ing of his daugh­ter Bindi, who appar­ently has her own TV show together with a boy band of dan­cers called “The Croc Men”.  They per­formed (a rare treat) live on stage for the crowd and she cer­tainly has a lot of tal­ent for a little girl and the younger mem­bers of the large half-term-holidays audi­ence got up and danced along with her.

I don’t think that it is fin­an­cial reward that drives these people to run this zoo.  Bur­ied in every song, every demon­stra­tion and every inform­a­tion board was a very hard hit­ting pro-environmental mes­sage.  The Aus­tralia Zoo machine may turn to the cha-ching of cash tills, but this is cash being used not to line share­hold­ers pock­ets.  Rather it is being plowed into the zoo itself so that it may expand and also to the law suit the com­pany are fight­ing against a gang of strip-miners threat­en­ing the “reserve” given to the zoo as a hon­our from the gov­ern­ment after Steve’s death.

Each sec­tion has a feed­ing on sched­ule together with the keeper giv­ing a talk about the animal and you can plan your trip around the zoo by simply fol­low­ing one from one show to another.  The high­light comes when you make it to the massive “Cro­co­s­eum” for the big show.

There were simply too many fant­astic moments here to do a full list, but here are my per­sonal highlights:

These two little chaps raced around their pond con­stantly play­ing with each other and enjoy­ing all the atten­tion they were getting.

The Kimodo Dragon — a per­sonal high­light of my life!  I have long been in love with this massive mon­ster from the past since I was only a boy watch­ing David Atten­bor­ough.  It was as big as me!  Dragons are really dan­ger­ous not just because or their size or aggress­ive tem­pera­ment, but also because their mouths are so foul that their saliva acts as a poison.

We all like a cuddle but these Giant Tor­toises love to have their shells rubbed by their keep­ers.  One of the longest liv­ing creatures they cer­tainly moved fast enough to munch down their break­fast of lettuces and cabbages.

Nor­mally if you are this close to a Salt Water Croc you are in ser­i­ous trouble.  These two were thank­fully relax­ing behind the mesh wall of their large enclos­ure.  The big one on the right was so big and so still that many people thought he was a model.  Massive jaws slowly opened and a rep­tilian eye affixed itself on the doubters.  This was the real live Aggro the Salt Water Cro­codile all right and he looked hungry!

Any time spent in the pres­ence of Australia’s most fam­ous animal is time well spent.  They are a pure delight and actu­ally quite nimble.  One awoke while we pho­to­graphed it and acci­dent­ally stood on his bed fel­low.  A large screech soun­ded and the accused Koala leapt 4 feet from one tree to another!  Like little furry Yodas they are always either snooz­ing or munch­ing on the leaves being con­stantly fed to them.

The animal that made Steve fam­ous didn’t dis­ap­point.  Even the keep­ers, who deal with these mon­sters every day, were wary of this massive Salty’ Croc who was the high­light of the main show in the Cro­co­s­eum.  The show had star­ted with snakes and then onto an amaz­ing bird show before the ele­phants arrived.  Finally, after a dan­ger­ous music had star­ted, they let in a croc.  He swam con­fid­ently up the small and shal­low fake lake towards the keep­ers who were thrash­ing the water to egg him on.  It was like shar­ing the show with a true Dino­saur.  To me cro­codiles are one of the most amaz­ing creatures on this planet.  Nat­ural pred­at­ors and undis­puted kings of their domains.  Even­tu­ally this Salty got bored with the team and swam back into his lair.  A royal snub for the crowd, but I was enthralled with his majesty anyway.

There are two types of people in the world; those who love Ele­phants and those who REALLY love Ele­phants.  Cesca is defi­antly the lat­ter.  The level of intel­li­gence in these massive creatures eyes is incred­ible.  The level of dex­ter­ity in their trunks is even more thrill­ing to watch.  These two had a long his­tory and had retired to their big domain that dom­in­ates the north end of Aus­tralia zoo.  While it took a while to get to here it was worth every minute we spent with two of the world’s most prized assets.

The ser­pents of Aus­tralia are as var­ied as the coun­try itself.  From the deadly, such as the aptly named “Death Adder”, to the simply huge, like the fab­ulously large Retic­u­lated Python (I have seen a photo of one of these that was 28ft long and had a head as big as Lab­rador!).  All are best viewed like this: behind glass.  I am not afraid of snakes and they don’t cause the same reac­tion in me as spiders do, but even I wouldn’t like to get too close to these as the descrip­tions all alluded to night­mare vis­ions of being stuck in the out­back with one of them attached to your toe.  For some of them that would be all that was said of you, “and then he trod on a snake…”  Still while you were con­vulsing your last gasps of breath you would get to admire some of natures most beau­ti­ful creatures.  Snakes are canny look­ing mon­sters and I enjoyed peer­ing at them for a good hour.

So those were my per­sonal high­lights.  There were so many more I could have gone on and on.  Such as the super cool Wom­bats being led around on leashes, or the Water Dragons that roamed the Cro­codile areas.  Or my first encounter with a Tas­manian Devil, which wouldn’t stand still, and learn­ing why they are rightly feared.  Or even com­ing face to face with my first Cas­sowary, which is the largest and most dan­ger­ous look­ing bird I have ever seen.  Not to men­tions the Tiger or the hordes of Kangaroos.

Suf­fice to say that up until this point Aus­tralia zoo was the high­light of my trip to Aus­tralia and I strongly sug­gest that you make it a high­light of yours too. Steve would have been very proud that although this sanc­tu­ary and its inhab­it­ants con­tinue to thrive without him his pres­ence, bound­less energy, can-do spirit and per­son­al­ity is writ­ten large all over the place.  The Cro­codile Hunters legend lives on.

Regards,

Basho

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