Australia Zoo

Yesterday we visited Australia Zoo -- founded by Steve Irwin and his mom and dad, and carried on by Steve's wife and kids.

Good stuff!

Steve's memory was everywhere, such as the sign at the end of the parking lot, indicating their wildlife hospital (see above)...


..and the ''no entry'' sign, below, with Steve's outline.

Below is a take on the old joke:  ''Walk this way...''

At their noontime show (or maybe it was 11 o'clock?  I forget), it was neat that despite their fame, the Irwins still participate.  Here's Terri (from Oregon, originally!):

...and here's Bindi:

Bob is off to the side, out of harm's way.  Terri says he's not allowed to feed the crocs until he's ten.


We saw a wombat being transferred from its main enclosure to somewhere else.  Basically, they just put a dog harness on it, and the zookeeper walked it down the path...

At the wombat pen, they had footholds for the kids embedded into the cement wall -- so that they could see over the wall.  That's a good design.

In the large, open area for wallabys (a type of small kangaroo) to wander about, they had a ''safe zone'' for them to go to when they got tired of people:  a good idea.

In the wallaby area was a wallaby that clearly had an itchy tummy:

There was a big fiberglass crocodile that was there for a photo op.

I found it interesting that none of my kids thought to ''ham it up'' and get their picture taken while being ''eaten'' by the crocodile (i.e. climbing inside its mouth) :  **my** sibs and I would've!


My wife and I thought it amusing that, after spending all that money (although it goes to a good cause) for a family admission, the kids' favorite experiences of the day were the playground, ''spinning teacup'' ride (see below), and the jumping castle.

To the Irwins' credit, they **could** charge for these -- but they don't.  They also don't charge for the noontime show that I mentioned above.  I appreciate that:  it shows class.


I can't make fun of the kids too much, though:  I was at one of the world's most famous zoos, and what did I take the most pictures of?  Wood-slab tables (in the eating area) and wooden park benches!

Here, I wanted to record the leg structure of the slab table. I have no idea whose hand and wristwatch those are:  no one I know.

Here's the bench that caught my attention, in the ''Africa'' zone.  I like how it has natural edges, rather than being milled.

Note how the back of the bench is connected.  I think these would be tusked through-tenons, but using what appears to be a railroad spike instead of a wooden wedge.

The seat, too, appears to be a tusked through-tenon.  Again, with a railroad spike.

This table -- again, with un-milled edges -- was somewhere there, as well.

As with the slab tables in the food area, I wanted to know how the legs were constructed.

So, yeah: my take-away message from the Australia Zoo is that they have neat-o tables and park benches.  Plus cute wombats and itchy wallabies.  :)


Seriously, though -- we had a good time.


--GG


UPDATE:   The Australia Zoo is about two hours north of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.  It's in a specific town, and if you Google Maps it you can see that the critters, if they escaped, could end up in people's back yards pretty easily.