Australia - Brisbane - Wildlife Encounters At Home and Away

It was only a matter of time before I had my first encounter with a kangaroo in Australia.

What I didn't expect was for it to happen in my kitchen. Rather than sighting a roo bounding footloose and fancy-free around my backyard or alongside the car on a highway, I observed one diced, marinaded and fried in a container in my fridge. In the spirit of adventure, I did try some. It wasn't too bad - a lot like beef or venison, but with a stronger flavour. I don't think I could sit down and eat a whole steak of it. Certainly not as keen on kangaroo as I was on alpaca. And now that Ingrid and Colin have repeatedly insisted that kangaroo meat isn't fit for dogs, I'm even less of a fan.

And kangaroo in my fridge was not the only wildlife in my kitchen this week. As previously mentioned, we have a bit of an issue with ants in our house. What I had not realized is that ants are a tasty snack for geckos, and in a house with open windows and no screens, the geckos can't help but be lured indoors by the feasting potential within. They also eat mosquitos, so at first I had no issue with our lizard roommates. But another thing I learned this week about geckos is that they can be a bit territorial. To the point of dive-bombing resident humans. I am now a bit wary of them as they scuttle overhead on the ceiling. When I had the back door open the other day, a pair of them menacingly scurried in my direction. I gave them a very evil eye promising them a nasty end. It was a bit of a stalemate for a few minutes. Luckily, they didn't call my bluff and wandered back outside.

Fortunately, this week I also had my second encounter with a kangaroo and this time it was alive and eating food out of my hand at Australia Zoo, in no danger from my BBQ. The lazy little grey kangaroo (little in comparison to his cousin the red kangaroo) wouldn't deign to get up for his snack, and like a Roman emperor remained reclined to nibble at his pellets. Seeing as these roos lounge around all day in a walk-through enclosure with zillions of tourists eager to offer them some grub, I guess I can understand that they've gotten a bit choosy.

A much more exciting feeding that same day was for the crocodile in the Crocoseum. Apparently Steve Irwin, the beloved Crocodile Hunter whose family manages the zoo, was inspired to build the Crocoseum after seeing some movie starring his friend Russell. You may have heard of it... Gladiator. But in his nature-loving ways, instead of having man vs. beast in the arena, the Crocoseum highlights how to live alongside each other.



I have to say, I couldn't take my eyes off that crocodile for even a second while he was moving around the arena.



I really don't know how these people hand feed these dinosaurs on a daily basis!

At one point under heavy security from adult wranglers, Bindi Irwin was feeding the croc and you could really sense how the croc did not differentiate between the meat strip in her hand and the rest of her arm. The look in his eyes and body language said she would make a tasty lunch. Bindi was responsible enough to remind kids in the audience at the end of the show that just because she fed a croc today by hand, that doesn't mean they should go home and try it in their backyards.

Less enjoyable about the show in the Crocoseum was the opening segment. Now, as many of you know, my greatest pet peeve in life is when people work the crowd. I find it incredibly patronizing and inauthentic. And at this show, I got to sit through almost 40 minutes straight of it, the worst of it being the "Crikey!"-off. I wish I'd made that up. And it was followed by 6-7 songs from Bindi's Jungle Dancy Party. Ughhhhhhhhh. Now, I have no problem with Bindi being a child star and entertaining children with songs and dances about animals. I just don't want to attend her concerts. Is that so unreasonable? To give you an idea, there was one song where she walked out leading a pony and sang a song whose chorus was "I love horses". Not kidding. She and the pony just stood together for most of the song. I'm just saying, they probably could have set up a separate showing for the Jungle Dance Party and left me to enjoy the awesome croc feeding show in peace.

Australia Zoo was pretty great on the whole there - put in a good six hours wandering around the place. I learned that otters are the greatest escape artists on the planet, having disassembled the nuts and bolts of their enclosure in one instance; koalas have two opposable thumbs and are every bit as adorable as the hype suggests; elephants can spray but not drink through their trunks; tigers enjoy playing in the water; alligators are extremely long-lived; crocodiles can recognize voices; and the Woma python is my new favourite snake, since it eats venomous snakes.