We awoke before our alarm, which wasn't surprising as our alarm was set for 10 hours after we went to bed. We had a leisurely breakfast of tea, yogurt, blueberry muffins for Jess and tom yum ramen (which wasn't bad) for Jer, and we took our time getting ready. We headed out to get a bit more food, stopping at one of the cafes along the Esplanade for a brekky special (eggs, bacon, tomatoes, toast and tea).
We wandered over to the city bus depot, where a bus to Palm Cove was getting ready to leave. We quickly boarded the bus, which took us 15 miles north to the Cairns Tropical Zoo. We made it in time for the Endangered Exotics lecture, where a keeper (Fiona) fed, and told us about, ring-tailed lemurs and red pandas. Apparently, lemurs are really soft, bur red pandas have a wiry coat.
We then went over to the Koala House, where Jess held (and had her picture taken with) Georgie, a sleepy two year old female koalas. We then wandered into the koala maternity ward, where we saw several adorable koala joeys. (Jess kept gravitating back there during the course of the day, so we saw them sleeping, eating leaves, climbing, hanging from branches and riding on mom.) In the main koala area, we arrived at feeding time so we got to see the animals awake and active, which was really cool.
Beyond koalas, we saw tons of other mammals, like dingos, wombats (both common and hairy-nosed), kangaroos (white, red and grey - the white kangaroos aren't albino, they're red kangaroos with a recessive color gene, and they only survive in captivity), wallabies, and potaroos. As the Cairns Tropical Zoo was originally "Bird World", we weren't surprised to find a huge variety of birds - cassowaries, kookaburas, brolgas, glossy ibis and many more. There were also many reptiles, remnants of the former "Croc World"; in addition to green iguanas, Boyd's forest dragons and the like, there were (of course) crocs, both freshies and salties.
We attended a croc feeding put on by Billie the hungover zookeeper. Despite his condition, he put on a great show, getting the 4.4-meter long Cooper and his (smaller) girlfriend to eat chicken scraps. Because the saltwater crocodiles were coming into mating season, Cooper didn't like Billie being in his enclosure, so Billie ended the show by getting another croc, Gummy, to come out of the water and eat half a barramundi. The obvious power of its jaws made us glad to be on the other side of the fence!
Having thoroughly explored Cairns Tropical Zoo, we stopped in the shop so Jer could buy a small wombat (which we named Trevor). We headed across the parking lot to an opal shop, which had opals and pearls of all sizes, colors and price ranges. Jess didn't see one in a setting she liked, so we left without buying anything. Our bus to Cairns pulled up just as we were crossing the highway towards the bus stop, so we were able to get back straight away.
Jess had caught Jer's cold and wasn't feeling great, so we headed back to the Bellview for some tea and a rest. She didn't manage to nap, so after a while we decided it was time for dinner. We went to Ochre for some gourmet bush tucker. We started with wattleseed damper, a tasty brown bread which we dipped in peanut oil and native dukka (a mix of seeds and spices) and an Australian antipasto platter (containing a croc wanton with sweet chili glaze; a slice of roast emu with beets; emu pate with tomato chutney; kangaroo fillet with mayonnaise or yogurt sauce; and herbed yogurt cheese on toast rounds - the wonton and the cheese were the best). For his main, Jer had spicy, salt and pepper leaf battered crocodile and prawns, while Jess had spanner crab with avocado, taro chips, asparagus mousse and an arugula and beet salad, both of which were very tasty. For dessert, Jer ordered the selection of Australian cheeses (tilset, gorgonzola and Barron River) with a glass of Grant Burge tawny port from the Barossa Valley in South Australia; Jess had wattleseed pavlova with Davidson plum sorbet and macadamia biscotti, with a pot of lemon-myrtle tea. While the desserts were both good, we realized that Jer should have gotten the pavlova and Jess should have gotten the lime tart with basil ice cream that he'd had her eye on. Still, it was a good - and interesting - meal, and we were glad we went to Ochre.
We walked back to the Bellview and, despite our intentions of looking at our pictures, ended up going right to bed.