We had an AWESOME day at Stradbroke Island earlier this week as an activity for the Joey Ambassadors program for Australia Zoo Wildlife Warriors. This was organised by another Joey family – Isabel Dow’s family.
We had a great ride over on Big Red Cat, where we had a photo opp. in “the bridge” where we got to drive the boat!!! Also enjoyed the breeze and watching jellyfish!
Then on Straddie, we visited the University of Queensland Research Station where we had an in-depth tour seeing all the shark tanks, labs and other cool uni stuff.
We also had a great talk with the Health Waterways people, discussing the impact of marine debris – all that rubbish on the ground ends up in our creeks, rivers and oceans – putting whales, dolphins and turtles at risk of injury, illness or DEATH!!!
This got us in the mood for our next activity… a Beach Clean Up! Amazing how much plastic was in the rocks at the high tide mark – and we thought our Bribie beaches had problems!
Then a great BBQ cooked by Dad & Phil at Straddie Bungalows. While enjoying lunch, we were joined by dolphins!!!! Every person went to watch, including those who were supposed to be manning the BBQ so there was a burnt sausage or two (Thanks Dad!)
Then a swim in the beautiful pool at Straddie Bungalows. That reminds me, I will have to nag Mum and Dad to take me for a holiday over there!
Then we met a lady by the name of Jan who was a local koala researcher and she said there were lots of koalas were in the area – and proved it by finding a big boy koala up a gum tree about a hundred metres away! We sniffed some koala poo (yummy! eucalyptus flavour!) but then it started to rain, so we ran back to the bus!
Final stop was the local history museum at Dunwich which was quite interesting. There was a jaw bone from a sperm whale (HUGE!!!) and lots of other cool stuff. Then back to the bus, barge and bus again to get home late at night.
Oh yeah… almost forgot to mention, we had some famous guests join us for the day. Check out Channel 7 News (I’m even in it) and the local newspaper! Thanks again to the Dows and the Warriors for a great day out!