On Sunday, the day after our OLR students arrived in Australia, the group of sleepy girls made their way to Lexis Noosa for their first day trip with the school.  When they arrived, they found their teachers Mr. Richard Cowler and Ms. Suckey Cheung waiting with Lexis teachers, Aaron and Tanya chatting and sipping coffee eagerly waiting for the day to begin.  Once all 15 of the girls arrived, they and their teachers made their way onto the bus and headed to one of Australia’s national treasures, the Australia Zoo.

When they arrived, the girls took the mandatory selfies and group shots with the bronze statues of the Irwin family, a memorial to Australia’s most celebrated naturalists.  They began their journey through the zoo, getting their first look at some fearsome saltwater crocodiles and sleeping Tasmanian devils.  They came across the Koala pen, where they found the dozing creatures sitting as cute as could be in their eucalyptus trees.  It was difficult to tear them away from the koalas to explore the rest of the zoo!

Eventually, the group made their way to the famous Crocoseum where they sat down for one of the best live shows in the country, Wildlife Warriors 101 LIVE!.  During the show, colorful parrots flew in synchronized paths overhead with their birdsong filling the stadium!  Giant birds of prey soared overhead and caught food in their talons mid-air while the girls and the crowd “ooh’d and ‘aah’d”.  To finish off the amazing show the animal trainers came out with Graham, one of the Zoo’s massive saltwater crocodiles.  This bad boy was basically an underwater dinosaur, and we watched as he prowled after the human trainers in his territory.  The trainers, cautious as the were, were able to get Graham the Croc to jump out of the water and snap food from their fingers.  Needless to say, the girls from OLR were impressed.

After the Croc Show was lunchtime where the girls got to sit down and eat, chat, and do a little souvenir shopping while they waited for the rest of the trip to continue.  Once lunch was finished, they made their way over to Kangaroo Heaven, where they were able to frolick freely with Kangaroos and feed them by hand.  Amazing!

By the end of the zoo trip, the girls had had the opportunity to pet Koalas, feed kangaroos, see camels, wombats, tigers and more! What a great trip!