Oh what's in a name. or title.

So I am prying my eyelids open to do a blog post before I pass out for the night, bare with me and hopefully this is worth reading.  Sorry I have not blogged recently, I have been off having adventures and am too tired each night to sit down and inform you of them.

So first, there was a glorious trip to the Australia Zoo. This is Steve Irwin's home turf and there are picture and videos of him and his family everywhere. You are literally greeted as soon as you come through the gate by a life size statue of the Irwins holding a crocodile. We even got to see the show he used to do, and sadly I must say I'm sure it was better with him.  It was pretty cool to see the giant croc that once actually managed to bite Steve, and the parrots were all beautiful (this has been a very birdy trip).  The koalas were all adorable and I am still determined to cuddle one at some point, but the best part of the zoo was the kangaroo petting! (and feeding)

Turns out kangaroos are actually really, really soft. Like softer than most dogs soft, like would make a delightful throw soft.  The ones in the zoo were super sweet too, if you held the food up a little high they would grab your hand with their paws to pull it down to an easy snacking height which was completely adorable. I would completely take one home if it didn't involve somehow keeping it in a dorm room for the next few months. Oh and getting it past New Zealand customs....

Pictured: Soft. (and actually a wallaby)

When we went through the second kangaroo enclosure (in surch of a koala I would be allowed to shnug) we found a kanga with a roo! It was pretty adorable because at first all you could see was a tail and a back leg sticking out of a very large pouch, but after hearing us and a few belly tickles little baby joey stuck his head out to say hello.  At first I was nervous that maybe mama kangaroo wouldn't want people that close but she didn't mind in the least if we made friends with her pocket friend. So we did.

Classic kangaroo face

fave.

We did find some koalas, and while we could pet them I did not get a chance to shnug, so it will be on my to-do list until... well until it gets to-done. We learned lots of interesting koala facts, like they get koala HIV, eat eucalyptus even though it's toxic and about as nutritious as packing peanuts because it was the only thing around when Australia was like "see ya" to Asia and headed out to go hang with the Pacific.  They have a 2 inch thick bone plate in their bum so they can sit and nap in trees all day and they have speckled buts to blend in when predators look from below. Basically they were designed to nap all day. Forget kangaroos, I definitely have more in common with my new favorite Australian animal.

Today was a glorious day in that it was a beach day!  well it ended in a beach day, the morning was a mountain and rain forest day.  So basically it was "from down the block right to Bangkok" kind of day.  In the morning we went to the Mary Cairns rain foresty thing that had a splendid view of the glass house mountains and then went for a somewhat muddy walk through the rain forest and saw 3 pademelons (marsupials like tiny tiny kangaroos)! Two of which had babies in their pouches, one of which we just saw kicking around inside and one had it's cute little head out semi foraging for shnacks.


Said beach was Noosa Beach and was actually not too far from where I went camping earlier this week.  The sand was super fine, the water was perfect, and the sun was hot, so doused in sunscreen I spent the afternoon enjoying the Australian summer in all it's glory.  AND I swam in the Pacific for the first time! It's not too shabby.  Tomorrow will be a city day, hopefully it won't be too long between posts, and I will try to keep you kids posted on all things interesting in the land down under, only 4 days left in Australia!