12/29/11
We slept in for quite a while, recovering from our late nights and early mornings of the past few days. When we finally got up and ready to go we piled in the car and Beth drove us to the Gold Coast. Her bosses had invited us to stay a night with them.
Our first stop, since it was supposed to be sunnier the following day, was to go to the animal park and we'd do the Gold Coast beaches on the 30th. The animal park was really great. They had tons of cool creatures. Shannon and I got to hold a koala and get our picture taken with it. Koalas are quite cute, but they really stink! He reminded us of Tobias.
While in the park we also saw a huge python, a massive monitor lizard, and some turtles. From there we headed over to the kangaroo area where we were able to pet and feed kangaroos. Almost all the females had joeys in their pouches, who were really cute. We never got to see any of their faces, but their legs or some other random body part was usually hanging out. We then headed over to the crocodile area, where we watched some smaller freshwater crocs get fed, then had a look at the humongous salt water croc. He was a little over 15 meters (45 feet)! Apparently during a flood at some point he had even escaped the zoo!
From there we headed over to the bird area and checked out the Cassowary. It's the most dangerous bird in the world, and kills more people in Australia than crocs and snakes combined (at least I think that's what they said). It has a big bone on top of its head and uses that to head butt its prey to kill or knock them out.
After the aviary we wanted to see some dingos since we missed them on Frasier Island. We saw them briefly but they were pretty boring...just dogs. We moved up from there to the area that took up most of our time at the zoo: the koala nursery! Probably the cutest place on the planet.. pictures below. We stayed there for quite a while and then checked out some Tasmanian devils before watching a bird feeding and heading off to Beth's boss' place.
We were half-heartedly hoping for our own room since we'd been sleeping on two pushed together twin beds, bunk beds, and a couch. Once we got there, we were blown away! They had a 4 bedroom condo overlooking the beach and it was really amazing. They were fabulous hosts, cooking us kangaroo steaks, sausages, vegetables, and giving us plenty of beer and wine. Then they bought everyone gelato for dessert. After that Shannon and I shared a romantic moonlit walk on the beach before crashing upstairs in our own room.
-Craig