Epic Round The World Trip Adventures! Stunning Photos & Articles - A fascinating gap year travel journal covering every stop of their journey.

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Epic Gap Year Travel Adventures! - Stunning Photos and Articles! – This page is all about Australia Zoo, East Australia on our round the world trip.

Stop 3 - E. Australia > Queensland > Sunshine Coast

Australia Zoo - East Australia
Gap Year Travel Journal

Text By Jo & Photos By Mike

(27th April) Australia Zoo - Beerwah
We had a full-on day of excitement at Steve Irwin’s Australia Zoo, although it was tinged with sadness when you see the tributes written onto shirts after his death (see photo with huge display of shirts and flowers). He still has a huge presence and there are cutouts and photos and memorabilia and video of him everywhere. Mike had an intimate encounter with him and croc – crikey! The first animal we encountered when we arrived was a wombat being taken for a walk on a leash. We were so excited to finally see one because they are nocturnal animals but here they have trained them to become diurnal and we saw loads and even got a chance to pat their bottoms (quite wiry hair). Their closest relative is the koala and are marsupials too. We went to the feeding of the otters. We saw a cheetah being walked on a leash. After a coffee break we headed into the Crocoseum ready for the big show. It’s like a football stadium with a big plasma screen showing footage of Steve. In the middle is a big display area and pool. It was a great show with lively presenters (who got us to do the “Crikey Wave”) and some great displays. First they brought in three elephants, then they had snakes writhing on the grass, then birds flying around the stadium such as lorikeets, black cockatoos and macaws and even a huge Jaberroo (a black necked stork) flew in to land in the centre. The finale is the croc show – crocs rule! A big 12ft croc called Murray swam into the pool and they fed him huge chunks of meat, even getting him to leap up out of the water to grab a piece. After lunch we walked through the kangaroo enclosure and did lots of stroking! We also saw beautiful tigers who put on an impressive display which we caught the end of, leaping up to grab meat from the keepers. We were able to feed the elephants too and because it was quieter in the afternoon we were able to keep rejoining the end of the queue and go back again. We fed each of the three elephants once and then the largest two once more – how greedy were we? Each time we had to hold out a piece of carrot or apple and they searched it out with their trunks, grasping it with the end of the trunk before taking it up into their mouths. We started off by watching the trunk but by the end we were looking them in the eye as they took it – it’s an amazing feeling feeding something so big! And they are so gentle! We had arrived as the zoo opened and left as it closed – a fantastic day out and it is the most tidy zoo with the healthiest and happiest animals we have ever seen with loads of staff about constantly interacting with the animals – well recommended.

Gap year travel journal from our round the world trip

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Australia Zoo, East Australia - Gap Year Travel Journal

Highlights of our gap year travel adventure: