Friday, August 2, 2013
Just a 30 minute drive northwest from Cairns is Kurunda Village, which has the Koala Gardens, Birdworld, and Butterfly Sanctuary. We rented a van from a place near our apartment called All Day Car Rental, and took a day trip to visit Kurunda Village, a must-see attraction for kids and adults!
On our way there, we also stopped by a short scenic walk to see Barron Falls.
 |
| Walkways to the waterfall. |
 |
| Walkways with lots of BIG ants! |
 |
| And lots of big... birds? Not sure what that is! |
 |
| Barron Falls viewpoint. |
We arrived at Kurunda Village, and started off with the Koala Gardens. This was one of the places in Australia that let you actually hold a koala! Yes, please!
 |
| We've arrived at Kurunda Village! |
 |
| Everyone gets a koala stamp as our admission ticket! |
 |
| What are you kiddies looking at??? |
 |
| Of course... KOALAS!!! Why are koalas so cute??? |
 |
| And they sleep 23 1/2 hours a day... |
 |
| Every Koala gets 30 minutes awake time to eat eucalyptus leaves and to take photos! |
 |
| Zaydee a little hesitant about this up close and personal koala! |
 |
| So worth it! Koalas are so hugable!!! |
Also part of the Koala Gardens was the Kangaroo Garden, which was a large, fenced-in area where 10-15 kangaroos and wallabies hang out. People can go inside and feed any of the kangaroos or wallabies, and basically get right next to them! It was essentially a "petting-zoo," Australia style! We always had the impression that kangaroos were dangerous and violent, because of their strong "kicking" legs. Apparently not... Zaydee even accidentally stepped on one of the kangaroos' legs, and it barely flinched!
 |
| Getting ready to enter the Kangaroo Garden! |
 |
| Zaydee learning to feed the kangaroo by keeping her palms open. |
 |
| Ro Ro and Ann Ming feeding a kangaroo. |
 |
| One of the wallabies - much smaller than the kangaroos! |
Next, we visited Birdworld, an aviary with 80 species of birds. I was not fond of this attraction because I had already gotten pooped on once on our first day in Sydney by the Opera House. Guess what? Of course, I got pooped on in Birdworld, but right on my head! It's so much fun washing my hair in the bathroom sink.
 |
| Ann Ming and Ro Ro watching all the birds fly up right next to them! |
 |
| Fancy-looking birds. |
 |
| Black swans? |
 |
| Ducks. |
 |
| Cassowary! It's the ROADRUNNER! Beep Beep! | |
Afterwards, we went to the Butterfly Sanctuary, which has 1500 butterflies inside! The butterflies ranged in size, some as big as two hands side-by-side, and were so colorful. They were very friendly too, often landing on one of us!
 |
| Inside, butterflies were flying everywhere! Hard to capture on camera... |
 |
| Much larger in size than the butterflies at home! |
 |
| Close-up shot! |
 |
| Surprise! |
 |
| Not sure what James was doing with this expression? |
It was an eventful morning at the Kurunda Village, and fortunately the kids took a short nap in the car on our way to our next destination, Hartley's Crocodile Adventures, which was in the same vicinity. We were able to catch the last show of the day and take their jungle cruise. It almost felt like Disneyland's Jungle Cruise... but with 7 or 8 REAL crocodiles swimming around us... and the guide would hang large pieces of meat off of a pole so that we could watch the crocodiles jump out of the water to eat it! Fortunately, the cruise boat had floor to ceiling covered windows (not open air like in Disneyland)!!! Whew!
 |
| Entrance of Hartley's Crocodile Adventures... ready to see real ones? |
 |
| The show we watched was crazy! This guy would tease the crocodile by running back and forth from the 2 cages! |
 |
| Ann Ming and Rowan's expressions while watching the crocodile show =) |
 |
| Now the guy is getting the crocodile to do tricks and roll over! True reason? The crocodile won't let go of the meat at the end of the string. |
 |
| Look how high the crocodile can jump out of the water!!! Taller than Zaydee for sure! |
 |
| Time for the Jungle Cruise! |
 |
| Notice the walls of the boat were completely enclosed with glass windows at the bottom and metal wires at the top! |
 |
| Surrounding our boat... |
 |
| Watching the cruise driver feed the crocodiles! |
After the jungle cruise, we had a little more time to walk around the park and turns out there was another Koala observation area where we could pet more koalas! Sure!
 |
| So soft... |
 |
| We love koalas! |
On our way back home to Cairns, we stopped by Palm Cove to check out their
beautiful beaches, and we also stopped at a restaurant called Aloha
Grill for dinner.
 |
| Letting the kids "drive" before we left. |
 |
| Palm Cove Beach |
Today's day trip was definitely memorable as something we could only do in Australia - hold a koala, and feed a kangaroo! Add on some butterflies, birds, and crocodiles, and we had a really productive day! We ended up getting back to Cairns too late to return our van, so we decided to keep it one extra day... Daintree Rainforest tomorrow!
 |
| Goodnight Koalas! |
