Shamus the Sheep goes Walkabout - Part 6

Crikey mates!

Today was hilarious. We went to see Steve Irwin's Conservation Zoo. Some of you have probably seen him on TV and know him as the Crocodile Hunter. His zoo is nothing like Edinburgh zoo! It is filled with crocodiles that Steve has caught himself.

When Steve was growing up he became concerned that nuisance crocodiles were being shot throughout Australia and so he offered to catch them and bring them to his zoo. He has captured many over the years, the biggest and by far the scariest is called Agro.

This is a picture that I took of Agro, thank goodness that there was a huge fence separating us! He certainly lived up to his name but was really fascinating to watch. We got to watch the crocodiles being fed. I thought Ewan had a big appetite! Luckily chicken was on the menu today and we were not spotted in the crowd. Please forgive me for not having my picture taken with Agro. I am sure you understand my reasons.

Australia's fresh and salt-water lakes are full of crocodiles. Crikey! You have to be very careful where you swim in Australia. There are deadly sharks and jellyfish in the sea and crocodiles in rivers and creeks. Ewan and I have decided to stick to swimming pools, the worst thing that can happen there are belly flops!

Crocodiles are at the top of the food chain. That means that they see humans and us as dinner! We spent all day exploring the park and discovered lots of croc facts, here are some of them:

• If a baby crocodile is in danger the adult female may pick them up and flip them into her mouth. In fact crocodiles make excellent parents.
• In the wild Crocodiles usually live to their mid to late forties, in captivity they can live up to 80 years.
• A crocodile will sit on the river bank with it is mouth open to bring it's body temperature down.
• When a crocodile loses one of its teeth it is able to grow another one.
• Crocodiles can grow up to 6m long.

It was a great day at Australia zoo. Lets just hope we don't run into any more crocodiles on our travels, particularly ones like Agro. Anyway off to bed as tomorrow we are flying to New Zealand, Yippee!

PS This is a visitor we had on our balcony yesterday. I have only seen a cockatoo in a pet shop. In Australia they are wild. Pretty awesome we thought.

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