Once again, we wake up at around 5am. Antoine opens the door to go to the bathroom and Mr. Fluffypants runs in again. We just let him. While Mr. Fluffypants stares out the window dramatically, we gather ourselves and head out.
We drive for an hour, Antoine planned for a two hour drive as he thought there would be that much traffic. We showed up an hour early, an hour before the Australian Zoo opens.
We wait and we wait, all I knew was that we had to be there for a Koala and Giraffe experience. Until one of the employees come out and ask for those going in for the Red Panda experience.
Antoine and another couple go towards her. We go into the gift shop and register. Someone in a golf cart picks us up and drives us into the back of the zoo. We go into one of the enclosures with two zookeepers. One of them with a camera and the other with a bowl of food. They sit us down on these benches, and we each put a towel on our laps. The zookeeper has me put my hand out and she puts some fruits and vegetables on it. The red panda, Ravi, comes down from his tree and into my lap to eat from my hand. He lets us pet him. After me, he jumps onto Antoine’s lap for the same thing, and then to the other couple. At one point, something scared him and he ran back up his tree, but then came back down, slowly, to eat some more fruits. Apparently, he rarely actually comes down his tree and is extremely introverted, so we were super lucky that he decided to come down that day.
Our experience also included tickets into the zoo, so we went in and checked out the animals. One of the things in the zoo, was you can buy “Roo Food”, so we did. There is an enclosure for the Wallabies and the Kangaroos, it’s a walk through, so there is no barrier between you and the animals. In the enclosure was also these lizards that run at you, and birds that look like ugly-knock off versions of turkeys. Walking around, we found a Wallaby lying on the ground, we walked up to it, put some “Roo Food’ in our hand and fed it. It let us pet it.
We walked around the enclosure and found a group of Kangaroos. One of them had a joey hopping next to her. When we got closer, he hopped into her pouch. Another kangaroo, next to them, had massive balls, literally. He really seemed to want to be fed, so he followed us for a little until we fed him. I got a selfie with him.
Another experience was about to start, so we had to walk over to the Africa side of the zoo. It somehow got significantly hotter as we got closer to Africa. One of the exhibits was so large, they had giraffes, rhinos, and zebras in it. There was a small platform for us to feed the giraffes on.
Bindi Irwin has a small island in the zoo, they use that island for the lemurs, some birds, and a giant tortoise. The lemurs run free on the island, but they were just hanging out, sleeping, in the trees when we went looking for them.
Turns out, every where we went in the zoo, there were the crazy lizards that run at you and the knock-off turkeys. They are wild and just hang out.
Our last experience was the koala. The two of us and a mother and daughter got led to some part behind the zoo, and a zookeeper came to us holding a koala. He smelled like eucalyptus with a hint of poop. We each got to hold the koala for a picture, and then another chance just to enjoy his presence. His claws are so sharp. I have scabs left over from him climbing on me five days later. Turns out, this zoo has 80 koalas, either rescued or born in captivity.
In the bushes next to us, were two of the ugly versions of turkeys fighting and chasing each other. PLOT TWIST, they are actually a species of turkey.
As part of our tickets, we get to take a sneak peak of their animal hospital. This is where they take care of the animals that are called in. They had a healing Koala who had just come back from surgery and is healing form getting hit by a car.
On our way out, there was a baby snake crossing the sidewalk, Antoine attempted to walk behind it, it attacked him immediately. Antoine jumped back and the snake kept going at him, until it just stopped and turned around. I could’ve sworn it was pink or red and blue, Antoine swears it was pink or red and green. But we can’t find an image of it online at all.
We drove to the next Airbnb, as we got closer, there were just so many roundabouts. So many. Roundabouts.
We had dinner at some Australian Tapas place on the beach side, and went back and ended our day in deep slumber.