Last OZ Blog; Coming home

My last day in OZ was spent in Mike’s office, we had to check out of our apartment at 10am so after several sweeps of the place to make sure we hadn’t forgotten anything we headed to work.

I sat blogging, e-mailing, tweeting; all the while Mike did actual work coming back occasionally to check I was okay, bless his heart it was home from home sat there, laptop, coffee, camera full of photo’s – I was fine!

We went out to eat with a few of the guys from the office to the Arrivederci Pizzeria where they make metre long rectangle pizzas! Between five of us we ended up with 1 ½ metre’s of the stuff! I opted for the sea food one, instead of a salad; my tummy roll named OZ wasn’t going to mind another layer and hey it was the last day – I needed pizza!

Pizza - Now you see it

...Now you don't

The two flights home went very well, I slept through the first, watched 6 films on the second, I even managed to act relaxed in the business lounges; or was I just too tired to care? lol!

Getting to Heathrow we had a moment of déjà vue when staff informed us they couldn’t find my wheelchair and that there was no note made of any in the holdall  (same thing happened last year – it had been taken to 1^st class - lucky chair!) Mike looked over the co-ordinators shoulder and pointed that in bold letters next to my name was – OWN WHEELCHAIR!

After some frantic radio communications it was finally located!

Sadly Mike and I had to say Goodbye at Heathrow, he was off to Texas the next morning for a conference; I admit that even after all that time in Australia together I found myself tearing up; what can I say 6 years and dozens of goodbyes and it still gets me.

My lovely friend Karen had arranged for our friend Frank to pick me up from the airport and he took me on a guided tour around central London; I was beyond exhausted at this point but as we all know I love old London and enjoyed my personalised trip.

Coming home I somehow forgot what we had done to the flat before leaving; half a kitchen, no carpets or wall paper and all manner of kitchen equipment stored in our bedroom. After 5 hours sleep in two days I just collapsed into bed.

For my wonderful time in Oz I completely deserve the jet lag, but the pain of coming home to cold damp England was dreadful, a moment crying at 4am, I thought “I’m not going on any more holidays – too much pain to come home to” which is of course completely ridiculous lol! I wouldn’t have given up this trip for anything. I just have to get used to home again and anyway being the jammy moo that I am I have 12 days until I’m holidaying in Spain lol! – A very lucky girl I know!

As for my weight and the extra tummy roll called OZ, he must have been a figment of my imagination as I did my 1^st official weigh in, in four weeks today and I’m exactly the same weight I was before I left, for all the pancakes, steaks, lamb, pizza’s, scones, wine, sushi and taco’s I ate I actually managed to maintain my waist line – who’d have thought eh? Certainly not me!

L x 

Australia Zoo!!

6am on Sunday and I positively leap (ok so more limped) out of bed! Why? Because we were visiting Australia Zoo, Home of the Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin until his tragic death in 2006. Today the zoo is ran by his wife Terri, their children Bindi, Robert and their 600 strong staff! I was a fan of Steve’s work during his TV career; you could help but be enthralled but his enthusiasm and genuine love for wildlife.


I could not wait to get (both!) cameras out and flex my photography muscles! Trouble was my digital point and click hadn’t charged and my SRL camera suddenly needed a “scan and fix” and would only take 200 snaps! To the average traveller that should be enough but my nickname Tamagotchi – The Japanese Tourist, just shows this is an usually small amount of frames for me! I had no choice but to take pictures then cull leaving the best ones behind – hate this because even the worst of pictures can be brilliant.

Anyway, the Brisbane trains where working perfectly, I kind of missed my V.I.P bus from the day before (see The Surfers Pardise post). When we got to Beerwah Station, Australia Zoo’s own fleet of complementary coaches took us from station to park. These weren’t accessible coaches though.

Camera, map, water and credit card (it’s not the cheapest day out!) in hand we set about planning our route to see all the shows and feeds along the way. We soon gathered that geckos and various other lizards are the English equivalent pigeons, they’re everywhere, and I found myself even a day later checking the floor as I didn’t want to run any reptiles over!

First show was the Otter feed, three cute females begged for their breakfast like puppies, I thought how cuddly they looked only to find out they’re mean little biters! Next on the agenda was feeding Elephants, grin permanently fixed in the queue I fed the bloody huge Sabu. I will never get over seeing these (and ones I’ve seen before) such gentle and yet staggeringly massive animals that always look endearingly sad.


Me and Sabu

Sufficiently slobbered on we moved on to the giant tortoise enclosure, they aren’t kidding with the giant; I didn’t think they were real at first and contrary to belief they can move quite fast! The two we saw had the most ingenious names – Goliath and Igloo two Aldabran Tortoise’s.

Igloo

We made our way through the lizard section, bird enclosures and the petting zoo fairly quickly, not that I don’t appreciate these equally as wonderful animals; I was here for the big boys and the Aussie animals!

In the main stadium of the zoo we settled to watch the bird, snake and crocodile show, despite the fact you know these are highly trained people you can’t help but flinch when a 1320lb croc called Agro snaps at his trainers arm and foot! I always think that if these were the smaller of the dinosaurs, we were in trouble with the others, walking through the crocs secure enclosure made me nervous enough!

Rather him than me!

We had lunch at the Zoo but I wouldn’t recommend it, their salads were limp and their sandwiches were soggy, I kept to drinking tons of water all day instead.

After lunch we must have spent a good hour flitting between the Koala bear and Kangaroo’s! This is what Australia Zoo was about! The Kangaroo’s roam around a massive pen that you freely walk around in (with strict guide lines that you’d expect i.e. no touching their pouches) there’s a Roo vending machine so that you can sit amongst them all feeding the red and greys. They’re so gentle and my second highlight of the day.

Coming first has to be my holding a Koala Bear called Kramer, we had our picture taken with him and Mike later on stroked and chatted to one called Coco. We went to the Koala show mid afternoon and I was horrified to find out that if these creatures aren’t looked after in the wild they will be extinct within two years – can you believe it? I’ve fallen in love with them, I can’t imagine coming back to OZ and them not being here or now showing any of my future children these beautiful darlings.

Just chillin'

The rest of the day we wander round seeing Dingo’s, Wombats, red panda’s, tigers, Tasmanian devils amongst others although ironically for their stature we managed to miss and couldn’t find the giraffes!

Just before we left we wanted to see the onsite hospital where there is an antenatal ward, as well as two open operating theatres that you can see the procedures taking place in, my weak stomach was thankful that there was no such animal in need at that time although I was bewildered to see a long necked turtle being examined, I’ve never seen or heard of one of these, must have sounded like a complete div asking what the hell it was!

On the way home 200 photos happier, I struggled to stay awake yet again, Mike said I looked like a happy child blearily looking out of the train window on the way home, all I needed was a face covered in ice cream and the picture would have been complete and funny enough it was the only day so far I’ve not had any!

L x