Australia Zoo Part V: The Final Frontier

So here it it. The final installment!! All the photos that haven't fit in to the previous themes. Including ones of the kids (and JBV!)! They had a ball. Even though they drove me crazy! Jaxon had a map, and wanted to see particular animals at particular times- even if they were always on opposite sides of the zoo! I don't know how many times I had to explain to him "we'll get to them... we are going to follow this track and see all the animals along the way, and we will eventually come to the dingos...". But 2 minutes later... "Ok, I wanna go see the dingos now.."! Aaargh! I can see why my parents used to get so frustrated with me at places like this- because I was exactly the same- just like every other kid! :)

We've got the passes that give us unlimited entry until Nov 30, so JBV took the kids to Bindi's Birthday last weekend as well (while I was at work!!) so we've already got our moneys worth! But there's a few more 'special' events coming up that we'd normally stay away from, but because the tickets are free, we plan on going- Like "Steve Irwin Day" and then of course the new Safari section opening in September! We'll make SURE we get our moneys worth!! ;)

Australia Zoo Part I
Australia Zoo Part II: Where Crocs Rule (and lizards too!)
Australia Zoo Part III: Birds of a Feather
Australia Zoo part IV: Furry Friendlies

and Remember to check out these photos and heaps more in better quality HERE

Australia Zoo Part IV: The Furry Friendlies

Ok, so this will be the second last instalment of our Australia Zoo trip, promise! This particular blog showcases the furry animals we met at the zoo- from the snuffling wombat to the big tigers. One of the kids all time favourites were the kangaroos and wallabies- and in particular all the little joeys inside many of the mamas pouches! We were even patting them! The kids got a huge kick feeding the roos and wallabies ($4 for a tiny bag of food!!). The zoo also has a little kids zoo, where they can pat (and feed but I wasn't buying anymore overpriced animal food!!) all these farm animals, our favourite of course being Peppa Pig! And we eventually made it over to the tigers. They only had one out at the time, and he was behind dirty smudged glass with really bad reflections and horrible light- so I only managed one decent shot of the big cat! But that's all I needed!
Australia Zoo Part I
Australia Zoo Part II
Australia Zoo Part III
And as always- check out my FLICKR for all these photos and more in higher quality!

Australia Zoo Part III: Birds of a Feather

Ha, I said I was going to drag this out didn't I? So here is part 3 of our Aussie Zoo adventure- the Birds! I have to say that my favourite bird was definitely the Andean Condor that they brought out during the wildlife show- he was huge- and he was still a juvenile! You see them on Discovery channel doing that kind of hop/jump when they're heading over to a carcass- but it was amazing to see this huge bird bounding around in person! There's a rain forest bird avery that you can walk through with heaps of birds bomb diving you as you walk through, which JBV got a kick out of! Then we came across the "Birds of Prey" exhibit. We couldn't see anything in there! JBV wanted to go in, and wouldn't listen to me when I was trying to tell him that this wasn't like the rain forest avery- you couldn't walk through it! And he was a bit skeptical when one of the workers told him the same thing, adding that it wouldn't be wise to go in there with these meat eating birds anyway! But as we were walking away-  a wedge tail eagle came bounding out of the scrub. This thing was so huge, and didn't seem like it could fly! But JBV quickly changed his mind about wanting to go in with these birds!

Australia Zoo Part 1
Australia Zoo Part II: Where Crocs Rule! (and lizards too!!)

And check out my Flickr Page for these photos and more in high quality

 Andean Condor

 Wedge Tailed Eagle

 Australian Darter - Shag

 Red-tailed Black Cockatoo

Blue and Gold Macaw 

 Juvenile Scrub Turkey

 Bush Stone-Curlew

 Cassowary

 White Egret- This guy is actually just a wild bird that hangs around during the croc shows to pick up the bits of food the croc misses!

Emu

Australia Zoo Part II- Where Crocs Rule!! (and lizards too!!)

Continued from Australia Zoo Part I
So we pulled up in the car park, to the zoo, and the kids eyes were fantastic to see- so excited- what a surprise! This is why us parents keep putting ourselves through stressful days at zoos and theme parks etc- for the kids (even if at the end of the day we swear we will never go again!!). But then JBV burst the bubble- he told them that there was a park behind the zoo we were going to, to feed the ducks! Bastard! Master J new dad was of i, but Miss K was furious! She refused to get out of the car! I finally made her understand that dad was full of crap, and we were off. I know that I've posted a few photos earlier, but to make it easier (for me), I thought I'd group the next few blogs into types of animals, so a couple of these may be repeated from the first blog! I thought I may as well start with the crocs! We went to the wildlife show and saw a few animals, but we were there for the crocs of course! The trainer tried for a long time to get him to jump out for the 'chook' for quite some time before he gave up- but came back to it at the end of the show and finally got some results. But it was a pretty poor effort on the crocs behalf- he barely left the water!! I promised the kids that one day we would go to Darwin and we'd go on the Adelaide River Queen and REALLY see some crocs jump! But the kids still enjoyed it! So Here are our croc photos! And I thought I could get away with throwing some lizards into the mix as well- they are reptiles after all!! :)
As always, check out my FLICKR Photos for better quality pics, plus many others as well!

Croc Food! Mmmmm!

 Shingleback Lizards

 Master J spotted this water dragon sunning himself on some stairs- scared the C.R.A.P. out of him!

Rhinoceros Iguana