Last weekend, Eden and I decided to experience alongside a few of our Aussie friends Steve Irwin’s famous Australia Zoo in Beerwah, Australia. Living in the suburbs of Brisbane doesn’t exactly yield to the “Outback” wildlife which many people think of when they think of Australia, so we decided to hit up the zoo before heading to the Sunshine Coast.
While the zoo was exciting, it wasn’t quite up to par with our expectations heading in. Since Steve Irwin, the famous “crocodile hunter, was tragically killed a few years back, the zoo (where he spent a great deal of his time) has seemed to have taken a downward spiral. While the set-up of the zoo is very spacious and environmentally-friendly for the animals, it really isn’t anything incredibly special and is in danger of being closed down for financial reasons. Still, it was worth our time to see many of the famous Australian animals. While chilling with the kangaroos and watching the koalas high on life was pretty sweet, the Asian Sea Otters were personally my favorite.
After spending most of the morning on public transit and part of the afternoon at the Australia Zoo, we went to another part of the Sunshine Coast and had fish and chips by the beach (amidst thousands of screaming parrots in the trees I might add) during the evening as the sun was setting.
Overall, the weather is starting to cool just a touch as the summer here has faded into autumn. Actually saw a long sleeve Green Bay Packers Superbowl shirt the past week, helping validate they actually did win the damn thing and that there is at least someone in Australia that is a fan of the NFL and the Pack. From what I’ve gathered, many Australians see American football as a really slow and boring sport, which if you think about it makes some sense as real game-time within a football game only amounts to like 12-13 minutes or something like that, as the rest of the time the clock is just running while nothing is happening on the field.
Anyway, the nights have been amazing weather-wise and last night we went up to Mount Glorious to have a few drinks with our friends at a small mountainside home overlooking Brisbane, and the temperatures actually dipped into the 50’s, which froze the Aussie’s out but made me felt right at home again.
Teaching is rolling right along. My coordinating teacher will finally be returning this week from her prolonged absence, but the independence and freedoms I have been given to run the class have been an invaluable experience both on the curricular and management levels. The department head actually went and bought me a six-pack of the Belgium beer “Stella Artois” last Friday afternoon for running the show during this time and not getting paid for it—so that set the bar pretty high for future administrators haha. Really a reflection of the great staff who work in the middle school at Kelvin Grove. Amazing to think of the road that actually led me here—definitely all for the best.
