Weather: Sunny and warm
Today’s our last non-traveling day in Australia, and we were excited because we’re going to see Steve and Terry Irwin … the Crocodile Hunter and his wife! We got to the train station and ate McDonalds (just as a comparison). I had a muffin and an apple! :)
The first show was the snake show. (Steve didn’t come out until the croc show). There were people coming through the exits holding snakes that you could pet. It was hysterical watching everyone shy away in terror as the snake passed by.
Then, they brought out the tigers! They were fairly large and they fed them with baby bottles. They would chase after the trainers and jump in the water with them. Spotters were there in case the tigers decided to hold one of the trainers under the water “until the bubbles stopped.”
While they were getting ready for the bird show, a whip-cracking world champion, Freddie, came out and cracked whips to a syncopated rhythm. It sounded like she was cracking six to eight whips, but she only had two!
Then the bird show started. There were huge red and golden parrots. They flew all around everyone’s heads and one even flew out the exit. (It came back later). There was one parrot called Pepe who was just learning to fly. The previous owners clipped its wings and kept it in a cage, so when the zoo took him in, they gave him wing implants. Because flying was new to him, he would try as hard as he could to flap his wings, and he got so far as a pole, but fell short a few inches and thudded to the ground a few feet below. It really was funny (once we knew the bird wasn’t injured).
Then, the moment we all were waiting for … the croc hunter himself ... Steve Irwin! It turns out they had a fake Steve and Terry come out! Imposters! … and bad ones! In fact, their Terry impersonator was a man! They captured a camera man and then ran off.
Then, the moment we were really waiting for … Steveand Terry Irwin! They made a grand entrance, complete with blasts of fog, “Oh Fortuna,” (summer blockbuster movie 
soundtrack music), and a Panasonic jumbo-tron. They made a few jokes and then their first croc entered .. their daughter, Bindi, swam through the crocodile canal! She must be four or five now and she even had some lines in the show! She stuck around for the whole show and stayed behind two large spotters.
Even his best mate, Wes was there to help. They had a new croc called Mosman that they brought out. They escorted him through the love canal (called the “love canal” because they’d love to eat Steve) and into the Crocoseum.
Steve got really close to this dangerous beast and I thought we were going to watch Steve get eaten! Instead, he just kept messing with him. 
Steve would draw Mosman out of the water with some strips of beef. Then, he threw a whole goat leg attached to a rope at him (hoof and all). Once Mosman chomped down, Steve pulled and
Mosman did a head shake and then a death roll! Steve cut the rope and let Mosman have his feed. It took a while, but eventually, he swallowed the meat whole (including the hoof). I couldn’t imagine what the prehistoric crocs must have looked like. They were twice as long as the T-rex!After Mosman was done feeding, he didn’t move. He just wanted to rest. Steve tried to get him back into the love canal any way he could. He tried tempting him with food, but Mosman was full. He tried a shallow dive into the water with the croc, but Mosman didn’t seem to mind.
So next, Steve tried tormenting him by pulling on his tail. Mosman moved a little bit, but not enough! So, Steve did something that he never had done before. He picked him up 
by the tail and dragged him to the canal! Everyone was nervous because they didn’t know how the croc would react! It snapped at him a few times, but eventually, they got the gate down.
Steve finished the show up by calling a giant eagle to his gloved hand.
After the show, there was only 45 minutes until the next show, so we walked around for a bit and then staked out a good spot for the next
show with Waipo (read “WEE-pah”). Steve did this show, too, and the murky water made the croc almost impossible to see. His spotters kept calling out when they saw Waipo and there were a few moments when he would stop taling, his eyes would get really wide and he’d stagger back.
They threw a tethered feed to demonstrate the death roll, but the croc snapped the leg in two and the rope broke off.
Steve got him out of the water one more time for the crowd and explained that Waipo was extra territorial because his Sheila was in the same enclosure with their nest of eggs! In poor taste, Steve went in the water and screamed like he was being eaten and Terry looked like she had a heart attack. I think the reason people find the Crocodile Hunter entertaining is the same reason people find NASCAR entertaining. They want to be there when something terrible happens.
After the show was over we took a quick tour of the rest of the zoo. We saw Agro! I pet a snake! :) Overall, the zoo wasn’t very big. We took a quick tour of the whole thing in forty minutes. The shows were very impressive and I was happy we came. The zoo itself has been around since the 70s, but only really started to flourish and expand once Steve married Terry and they took ownership of the zoo. She really seems like the brain behind the Crocodile hunter marketing.
After we got back to “Brissy,” we went on a bike-ride along the river and over Story Bridge. It was a great ride, except the map we had didn’t have street names, so we missed the entrance for a few turns.
We did see a lizard, though, and rock-climbers go up the cliff.We rode along the river banks until there was construction, so we had to carry our bikes up a few flights of stairs, onto the streets of Brisbane, and then through a McDonalds outdoor area before we were back on track. We made it back to the rental place exactly an hour after we left. Good thing, too, because they had our credit card as collateral!
After the ride, we walked through the botanical gardens to our hotel, got changed, and went to dinner at Kabuki, a Japanese steak-house.
I caught an egg in a tea cup, or rather … I tried to catch an egg in a tea cup It landed square in my lap (and it wasn’t hard boiled). Our chef, Grant, cut the egg up faster than anyone I’ve ever seen!
Then, he started throwing food at us again. This time, it was rice!
The people who sat next to us were very nice and very friendly with the staff at Kabuki. I just assumed they were regulars, but apparently, they were celebrities, because they had special chop sticks reserved for celebrity visitors. I didn’t recognize them as famous, but maybe they’re big here in Australia? They were on their 25th day of vacation!
After our meal, Grant spelled out “Thank you very much” in salt upside down on the counter top! We figured he just learned how to write that upside down, but he wrote “Have a happy and healthy journey home” next! It was the perfect last dinner for our trip.
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