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Blog 2: Pouring rain, plastic ponchos and a 28 year ambition ticked off the list

  • Writer: Mary Moscrop
    Mary Moscrop
  • Jun 5, 2023
  • 4 min read

Updated: Jun 8, 2023

Wow, waking up in Brisbane – what a view. It feels like such a young city, and is really fresh.


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The forecast for today was not great, and we had planned on getting to know the South Bank a little better with a mooch to the Art Gallery and Museum, along with a trip on the Brisbane Wheel, but the thought of doing

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that in the rain was not appealing, so we changed tack and ticked off one of my major bucket list items, a trip to Australia Zoo (What3words: participated.stance.sooner).


I have wanted to visit it since before Emily was born. Neither of us are big fans of Zoos in general, and Em really did not want to go, but she acquiesced...and was glad she did.

They are heavily focussed on conservation work, and the animals are so obviously well cared for.

Driving is great over here, they drive on the right (correct) side of the road, and the rules are generally the same as home, but everything on the car is back to front! The number of times I have put the wipers on instead of the indicators and changed the channel on the radio when trying to turn the volume down - but we made it without mishap!


Australia Zoo did not disappoint, and it was lovely to see the nods to Steve Irwin around the park. The heavens opened just as we got there, but torrential rain would not stop us, we simply bought plastic ponchos at the shop and got on with it.

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There are just too many pictures to show in this blog (I took hundreds), so here a couple of my favourites.


The highlight of the visit was the Croc Show, which was exactly like it was when I watched it on TV all those years ago – except it was so much more too! Snakes were brought around to show them off and there were flying displays with various birds who live at the zoo, the finale being a mass flock of assorted birds flying pel-mel around the Crocosium.

The Croc was the star of the show, and the one they used today was a type of albino croc which means he has different colouring and is much more yellow than the normal dark green. The way it snuck through the water without even a ripple (they can reach the cruising speed of a dolphin) as it homed in on the vibrations from the footsteps of the zoo keepers, and how it used its tail to propel itself out of the water was extraordinary – I know Em and I will only be swimming in designated areas, if at all on this trip!


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After the Croc show, we bumped into some family members – not of the crocs, of ours! Fancy coming to another continent and meeting your family walking down the street!


Another highlight of the day was getting up close and personal with Roos and Koalas – the Roos took a bit of doing, as we were both big ‘fraidy cats. Little kids were running up and petting them, but we approached cautiously and asked the Roo in a calm voice if we could pet him…. at the same time, keeping at least 3 feet away!


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We did hear of one of the Roos kicking a child later on, but the kid was being mean to it, so we are on team Roo!

Oddly, the kangaroo felt much softer than the Koala, and I had expected that to be the opposite – it is down to the Koalas having an undercoat to keep them warm apparently.

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We went into the reptile house (I am not generally a fan, unless they are quite docile, like the from Brazil in the first Harry Potter movie) these ones were anything but – it must have been almost feeding time as they were all smelling the air. The most terrifying thing I heard was a mum saying to her very young child ‘oh, come and look at this red bellied black snake hun, these are the ones we get on the farm…..’ eeek!


There are too many other highlights from the Zoo to mention, but the Tigers, Wombats and elephants were amongst my favourites.

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After the Zoo we headed to the Glass Mountains lookout point (what3words: equals.present.assistant) – the weather was not our friend but the views were still stunning. Volcanic activity caused the massive outcrops, and they look just so unlikely plonked in the middle of rainforests.


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After an impromptu cuppa with the family, we headed back into Brisbane and wandered down to West End for a bite to eat in Italian Street Kitchen (what3words: energetic.fallen.rent) Em had crab ravioli and I had a pizza – very nice, and there was such a great vibe around the place – we had a couple of cocktails but just could not stand the pace after a long day so come 10 pm we are back at the apartment.


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Tomorrow we are meeting up with an old friend from my Travel Agent days and she is going to be our tour guide – cannot wait!

 
 
 

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