We had a lovely day at Steve Irwin’s Australia Zoo with Dot (Dorothy Thurlow, Te Kauwhata) whom it was wonderful to meet after 45 years! Dot was looking lovely and we both agreed neither of us had changed a bit! The weather was hot and humid, very exhausting, but the experience quite uplifting. The zoo is beautiful and managed so professionally, the humans smart and clued up and the animals charming and well cared for. The crocs are quite intimidating but seem to do as they are told! My favourites were the lorikeet flypast in the show and the lovely native bird aviary and Brian’s was Monty the crocodile who refused to go back in after his feeding performance! They didn’t bother to coax him but left him to make his own mind up! When he realised he was not getting any applause he sloped back into the pool and went home!
Steve’s image is everywhere and they do miss his presence badly. A lovely place.
Thank you Ian and Dot for the luxury ride and Dot for a memorable day. Sorry if you were late picking him up, it was our fault as we could not be dragged away – it was awesome!
We came home to more news of Cyclone Yasi. This is the biggest ever! Category 5, 500k across, winds of 200+kph, a flood swell of 4 m, it’s bigger than Katrina and heading for the north Queensland coast at 35kph! At the moment it seems to have veered south of Cairns a little but those in its path await it with dread. We are now in the waiting time before midnight tonight and, to prepare, there are mass evacuations to safer areas, constant flights of evacuees into Brisbane including 250 hospital patients and their equipment from Cairns hospital. People left under threat are bunkering down and facing a fearful night.
But what organisation and what people the Queenslanders are! From the leadership of Premier Anna Bligh, who has found her political moment and made it good, (George Bush, where were you for New Orleans?) to all the services who are on the ready for both before and after the event – rescue, medical, transport, police, tradies (love that word!) armed forces and so many more and the people who just face it, get through it and start again. It’s going to be a big one and the world will follow it – let’s hope there’s not too much damage or loss of life.
I’d pay $10 a week to get Queensland right again not the $1-5 some folk are complaining about! What a battering the State has had but it has been a privilege to be here to see how people deal with it all. “It will be terrifying, but you are not alone – we are all in this together.” AB)
All we expect to get is a little wind and rain – we are so lucky.