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| "Portions like home" (e.g, huge) said our American hotel clerk |
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| Thinking of Uncle Adrian |
After a gigantic breakfast at the Lillypad Cafe, we did an afternoon trip to Hartley's Crocodile Adventure the day after our Barrier Reef tour. (Hartley's is a nature/theme park about a half hour away from Cairns, so we had to take a bus. The bus tour was nice -- the driver gave some commentary along the way -- but it made the visit to the park a little rushed.) The centerpiece of the park is a boat ride around their river where they hang pieces of chicken out of the boat on sticks, and the crocs jump up to eat them. The sound of those massive jaws snapping shut is pretty impressive!
We also saw their senior croc, who is more than 100 years old and mostly blind. :) Our guide joked that he was in "Aged Care" (the name for nursing homes in Australia).
Our boat tour was led by Jesse, the senior croc guy at the park. (He had an official title, but I can't remember it.) He was awesome. He was sort of a prototypical Australian nature guy -- tan, bare feet, laid-back. :)
We also went to the "Croc Attack" show, where a barefoot presenter also got the croc to leap up, roll over, and so on. (He survived.) A lot of the show was stories about people who were dumb enough to swim in croc-infested waters (and generally that didn't end well for them).
Mikey also got his koala picture, which you have already seen. :)
And we got to pet kangaroos, which was pretty cool! We also got to see the cassowaries, an ancient bird who is very important to the rainforest -- their digestive system helps the seeds of certain trees to grow. They are protected in the wild (and can also be aggressive -- they're big birds and can jump up and get their claws into a person's midsection).
Matthew got a stuffed crocodile as a souvenir. At first he named it Ted, after the senior croc. Then I joked that Ted's favorite food must be hot dogs (because of Ted's Hot Dogs back in Buffalo). So then Mattie changed his croc's name to Hot Dogs. :)
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| Agile Wallabies in the wild (pushed out by development) |
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| Baby Koala |
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| Croc expert Jesse |
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| Kanga-rules |
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| Cassowary |
We also went to the "Croc Attack" show, where a barefoot presenter also got the croc to leap up, roll over, and so on. (He survived.) A lot of the show was stories about people who were dumb enough to swim in croc-infested waters (and generally that didn't end well for them). 
And we got to pet kangaroos, which was pretty cool! We also got to see the cassowaries, an ancient bird who is very important to the rainforest -- their digestive system helps the seeds of certain trees to grow. They are protected in the wild (and can also be aggressive -- they're big birds and can jump up and get their claws into a person's midsection). 
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