Today was a day of enjoying the Australian Wildlife... in habitats that is.
Our first stop was to have Breakfast with the Birds at the Wildlife Habitat in Port Douglas. When we checked in for our meal the lady notified us that the food was in a separate room from where the bird were due to Food and Drug requirements. She sounded as if she thought it was ridiculous that they had to move the food. I quite frankly am with the FDA on this one...
Before eating we had a little fun in the gift shop:
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| bat mask! |
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| creepy koala |
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| I think this bird is planking |
Then on to Breakfast with the Birds. The buffet was lovely and as we ate they brought around some birds for us to see. The bird they brought around for us was not yet trained to be held by guests, so we just pretended.
Then on to the rest of the bird habitat. It was so fun to have birds flying around you everywhere! in one of the pens was a cassowary, which is a native bird of Australia that kind of looks like an emu, but more colorful. They are apparently very aggressive, so I'm glad we were separated by bars.
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| Cassowary |
After the bird room, we moved on to the "Grassland" room which had all the Wallabies, Kangaroos, Emus, and tons of ducks!
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| Wallabies |
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| relaxing Wallaby doing its best Kate Winslet pose |
Phoebe had brought some food to feed the animals, so we had them all eating out of our hands.
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| Phoebe and the pushy Emu |
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| We was kind of violent as he pecked the food out of my hand... |
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| ... not gonna lie, it kind of hurt. |
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| It was not happy when the food was gone and kept trying to grab the whole bag |
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| Then it followed us around. We finally threw some food on the ground and ran away while it was distracted |
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| Kangaroos! |
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| While trying to feed the kangaroo, this bird totally pushed its way in |
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| ... So I had to reprimand it. |
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| and then the swamp wallaby wanted in on the action |
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| we named this Kangaroo Marbo and he was so cute! |
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| kangaroos, as they eat from your hand, will hold your hand still to make sure you don't pull away... it was like we were holding hands. Once the food was gone from my had it started gnawing on my thumb for more |
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| the kookaburra... my morning alarm clock every day |
We went to a Koala presentation where we learned about Koalas. We learned that they sleep for 20 hours a day and mostly this is because the eucalyptus plants they eat are semi-poisonous for them. They didn't tell us this in the show, but the Koala population has a high percentage of Chlamydia... this is due to the fact that their mating ritual is that the male rapes the female to conceive... sad, but true.
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| waiting to hold Glen the Koala |
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| Chlamydia infected rapist! |
After seeing the Habitat and enjoying all the wildlife, we weren't done yet. Our next stop was Hartley's Crocodile Adventure!! It is an entire preserve dedicated to Crocs. I was a little hesitant, but also fascinated!
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| Upon entering we saw this owl... which bears a striking resemblance to Hedwig from the Harry Potter novels... so glad to see she survived :) |
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| This is Paul... one of the largest crocs in the park... he looked hungry. |
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| staring contest |
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| getting ready for the Croc river tour |
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| attack 1 |
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| Attack 2 |
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| Attack 3 |
The River tour was pretty inpressive and creepy. At one point the tour guide stuck a piece of chicken onto a branch over the water to show us how the croc would get it, but before the croc even came out of the water, a bird swooped down and grabbed it instead. It was a hilarious let down.
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| This croc is fake... so don't worry. |
We also took a tour of their Croc farm on site, which is where they raise Crocodiles for their meat and skins. There were bins FULL of baby crocodiles being bred for slaughter. I'm sure some of you expect me to have been horrified at them being raised only for fashion and food... but I really don't care cause they are horribly scary creatures.
They also had a Cassowary at the park.
They also had huge snakes at Hartley's but since I hate snakes and probably would have peed my pants at the sight of one, I was content to avoid them like the plague.
We also saw a Crocodile attack show. It is much like a sea world show, except crocodiles are not cute and they want to kill things all the time. This was such a heart pounding show, and what made it such was that the trainers were even surprised by the crocodile trying to charge them every time they entered the ring. The crocodile wouldn't cooperate at all! At one point it even swam over to the glass wall between it and the crowd and stared at a little girl on the other side of the glass eating her popsicle. Totally not ok!
It was insane though to see the Crocodile do a death roll and clamp its jaws really loud.
Then after Hartley's Liam and Phoebe and I went to dinner at Mojo's in Mossman... seriously great place! I had the Filet Mignon and it was amazing! I also took the opportunity to try some Australian wine. I like sweet wine and since a lot of Australian wine is not sweet, I stuck with the Riesling wine. yum!
Phoebe had a rum and coke with Bundaberg Rum. It was disgusting! It tasted like disinfectant.
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| Phoebe :) |
After Mojo's it was off to bed.
Wednesday was a nothing day for me again. I spent the day in Port Douglas while Phoebe worked. I sat on the beach, walked through all the local shops, read my books, had a picnic of Thai food in the park, read some more, and was pretty bored of it by the time Phoebe was done with lunch. It was nice to get some sun and read and relax though :)
