We packed up everything on our backs again and caught a bus into central Brisbane to catch another one back out of it: the Greyhound coach. Our next destination would be Noosa, although on the way we’d stop at a number of places including Australia Zoo. While here we noticed a billboard proclaiming November 15th would be Steve Irwin Day, so decided to plan our Australia Zoo outing to coincide as we had the month to choose from.

The 3+ hour trip went by quickly as I had an audiobook of Richard Dawkins’ Greatest Show on Earth to occupy my mind. As well as greatly clarifying anything I didn’t know about the evolutionary process, I found it greatly inspiring and hope to ellaborate more on that subject in a future post about games.

My relatives in Noosa live in Sunrise Beach, in a beautiful house looking out onto the Coral Sea (essentially the coastal Australian stretch of Pacific Ocean) from a raised hillside, perhaps a hundred metres from the water’s edge. After the first week they were away in Tasmania for 20 days, so we looked after the house and (temporarily resident) cat. After the busy sightseeing and activites of the previous two months, Noosa was to be something of a break. Some days were spent simply relaxing at the house. I had the chance to get a lot more work done, in the fine office that was a pacific-view balcony. In addition, I participated in NaNoWriMo, but that is a subject for an entry in itself.

When our relatives left for Tasmania, we drove the car back from the airport at Maroochydore. On the way, we stopped off in the town of Coolum and spent a few hours on the beach. I decided to build some pyramids, which I have been known to do from time to time; although my sacrifice to Ra was the skin on my lower back, which flared up due to a slight sunscreen miscalculation. For the next week my back would be a hindrance, but the 4-foot monolith could only come at a price!

On the 15th we visited Australia Zoo for Steve Irwin Day; a heartwarming if maybe slightly surreal time when the Zoo celebrates (maybe just slightly worships) the life and work of that hugely popular bushman. There was a very entertaining display at the Crocoseum, which is an arena designed for showcasing the closeup behaviour and interaction with crocodiles. The aim of the Zoo, in continuing Irwin’s aspiration, is to educate people on the nature of these animals so as to promote a more harmonious relationship between the two. Their claim that all things in the natural world have a purpose and a place is a simplification, and one that borders perilously on immutability of species. But the sentiment clearly is more focused on the much more biologically sound idea that if you fuck with an ecosystem, the effects are bigger than you think. It was good to see them making a point of this.

The zoo is so vast that over the course of the day we didn’t even get to visit the newly opened Africa section (admittedly we’ve seen many of these animals before, and it was the indiginous we were here for). There were Dingoes: the Australian wild dog, with the look of a reddish-sandy wolf-like breed. There were Cassowaries, which are pretty much dinosaurs (proving that Terra Nova was filmed here for a reason) and the Tasmanian devil, a shy little thing that is a bit like a cross between a badger and a possum.

Overall we both hugely enjoyed our visit to the place, which included seeing the Wildlife Hospital there. It’s a service to the local wildlife funded mostly by the Zoo itself, as somewhere to take a Koala hit by a car, for example. Both the ideology and the work were fascinating to see and in fact it ended up being one of our best encounters with Koalas; the Wildlife Hospital’s most common patient.

Incidentally, in our failed search for a jumper that was the right size and style for what Lucy wanted, we’d left Australia Zoo empty handed; but there happens to be an outlet of their merchandise in Mooloolaba! So on a later day, we headed a short way down the coast and the perfect jumper was acquired in the end! Baskin Robbins ice cream, of the delicious Cotton Candy variety, was also consumed with passionate abandon.

Summary So Far:

• Packets of 99￠ Banana sweets consumed: 8
• Beers opened with a bottle opener (after a lengthy search), that were actually screw-tops: 5
• Most days without rain: 30
• Highest price for a pint: $15 (Asahi, Brisbane)
• Huntsman encounters: 4

Join us next time; as Lucy recounts another riding excursion, we attempt to learn surfing, and get into the sliding seats of a fast rowing boat!