Bring on the animals!!

A beautiful day spent at the Australia Zoo with my awesome tour/animal guides, Annette and her friend Angus :) I have to learn about all of the crazy Australian animals I may encounter before I go off on my own, and yes, that included looking at all of the snakes... The giant guinea-pig-like wombats, waddling echidnas and even the terrifyingly big-footed cassowaries were some of the highlights. Although, we were at Steve Irwin's zoo, so the croc show in the stadium was up there too!

Annette liked having me go pet and pose with the animals

I made her come along sometimes too :)

Wombats!

Creepy cassowaries

and the croc show!!

When we walked passed the typical tourist "come get your picture taken with a koala" photo-op, I won't lie, it was tempting, because who doesn't want to hold a koala?! But, the stingy part of me didn't want to pay for the overpriced posed photo in front of the cheesy backdrop for two seconds of rushed koala interaction.... so we moved on.... but lucky for us, later on, we passed through the koala habitat and something even cooler happened. Under supervision, they let you pet the back of one of the koalas in the tree, which quite honestly, I was more than excited about, they are so cute up close and so soft!!! But while we hung around there, and I oohed and awed over the cute cuddliness, Annette and Angus chatted to one of the handlers, and he apparently took a liking to us, because he pulled the koala I had been watching, out of the tree and had us follow him around the corner, away from the other visitors, and let me hold the little guy!!! :) So happy!! Annette has been joking since I got here about being a tourist and needing to "hug the obligatory koala".... but it was so worth it! Not ashamed. That definitely made my day.

Petting the first Koala!

And getting to hold another! :)

After a full day touring the zoo, the evening was spent having pizza and dessert at home with some more of Annette and Angus's friends and hanging out around the fire. I managed to stay awake for quite a good while, but when you start to get poked to check and make sure you're still awake, it's a pretty good sign to call it a night.

Note to self: chocolate pavlova. I like it. I need to learn how to make it. Chocolate pavlova with whipped cream, strawberries, chocolate flakes, and raspberry sauce.... yep. I could eat that for the rest of my life.