It was an early morning when we departed to the Melbourne Airport for our three-hour flight to Cairns in the northeast corner of Australia. We arrived before noon and were picked up by our bus to go to Hartley’s Crocodile Adventure, about 45 minutes north of the airport.
This park is a sanctuary, breeding facility, and showplace for kangaroos, wallabys, parrots, koalas, and crocs. We started out in a small boat to navigate the canal in the park where they have nine crocodiles. The females lay about 100 eggs but not all make it to birth. They have to remove most of the eggs from the nest because they couldn’t handle several females hatching hundreds of baby crocs.
We witnessed these prehistoric animals living the good life, without predators and lots of chicken to enjoy. Afterward, we got an opportunity to hold either a baby croc or a beautifully-colored python. I held the python, whose skin was very smooth and soft. We fed and petted adorable kangaroos, saw some amazing birds, and had another photo op with koalas.
We got to our hotel around 5:00 PM to get settled before going to a nearby restaurant for an incredible meal. No buffet this time, thankfully. I meant to take pictures of Jim’s calamari, my awesome salad, his perfectly-cooked steak, and my barramundi fish (Asian sea bass) but we ate it all too quickly. We only had a picture of our dessert.
We definitely were ready for a good night’s sleep.