Australia Park Zoo

Visiting the elephants at the famous Australia Park Zoo, does Steve Irwin's dream of saving wildlife live on?



Last time I left you I was preparing to ride through Brisbane and let me tell you it took a lot longer than I expected!

From Springwood I found a bicycle path that ran alongside the Motorway (which is illegal for me to ride on), it was nice not to have to deal with traffic however it was slow going as I had to cross roads at pedestrian crossings and deal with the ever present bump, bump, bump, bump of the concrete joins in the path. After 25km I had arrived on the river overlooking the city, it was a nice place to stop for a banana and there were these cute lizards who were very curious, I then crossed over a new foot bridge to enter the city centre. I rode alongside the river for a short while before I had to finally ride on the roads. Well, from there until the Northern suburbs was the real slow part of the day, there seemed to be no easy way out of the city in a North/Easterly direction which allowed bikes on it. I criss crossed many roads before finally after 4 hours I was out!!! I then cruised into Deception Bay and was happy to be back on the wheels...

Brisbane City, notice the new haircut. Thanks Megan!!!

Friendly riverside Lizard

The next day I had my first stint on The Bruce Highway which I'm sure will feature heavily over the next 1900km, it wasn't a promising start as there was glass absolutely everywhere! I found an alternate route from Caboolture to Landsborough which was much quieter, safer and glass free, well except for the Glass House Mountains!

Australia Park Zoo is about 80km North of Brisbane, so it's well away from the busy city and has a sub tropical feel to it. I was a little bit worried visiting the zoo as Melbourne and Sydney zoo's were really upsetting in terms of how the elephants are kept and the message they are giving to the tourists who visit. I was also hopeful that it would be different as the late Steve Irwin's goal in life was to protect and save wildlife.

I arrived early to avoid the crowds and pretty much immediately went to the elephant enclosure, they have a specific elephant gift shop called Elephantasia alongside which I visited first. I was immediately impressed as there is no elephant tourism pictures or information, they do however have a whole wall dedicated to elephant conservation efforts as well as Australian customs confiscated ivory items on display with the clear message to avoid purchasing any ivory or animal products while travelling abroad. After taking some pics of the display I wandered down to the the 3 elephants to check out their enclosure. Grass, sprinklers, a pool and heaps of food growing around the boundary, I was also later told that the elephants have 70 acres of land which they get to use often. The elephants themselves Siam, Sabu and Bimbo are all in their 50s and still owned by the Bullen family, they were apart of the Bullen Circus for many years but since 2003 they have been at Australia Park Zoo in retirement.

Relief was the main emotion I felt at that stage, finally a zoo in Australia that does not promote elephant rides, use elephants to perform tricks or have any form of elephant tourism on display. I was so relieved. Steve Irwin's dream is still very much alive...

Steve with Elephant

Confiscated items through Australian Customs

An Ivory Chess set.

Ivory Chopsticks 

Elephant Tusk

Even an Elephant Foot Stool

The Bullen Family  

The 3 girls with Burma who now lives as Dubbo Zoo

Historical photos of Bullen Circus elephants from the 1960s

 Throughout the day there were 2 'Feed The Elephant' experiences and one elephant talk, the elephant feed times were very organised and there were literally hundreds of people lining up to feed the 3 elephants. 

Tourists line up to feed the elephants

Feeding time

Cheeky girl knows where the grass is

 During the elephant talk at 1pm the mahouts demonstrated with one elephant how they check and clean the elephants feet as well as showing the tourists where the girls tushes are. They only thing they made the elephant do was drag a small 60kg log across the concrete, while the elephant was doing this the guide spoke about how they are striving to end elephant logging in South East Asia stating that this activity causes harm and stress to elephants. The demonstration went for about 20 minutes and while the mahouts do carry hooks they are an altered version with no sharp points, I only saw the mahout use the hook once wrapping it around the elephants trunk to turn her around, it was explained to me that the only time they use their hooks is to be able to keep their distance from the animal while they command it. Personally I'd like to see an end to the hook but realistically I'm not the person asking an elephant to do things it may not want to do. Safety for both elephant, mahout and tourist is paramount and I'm sure that the tourists who attended the 1pm talk will have learnt a great deal about elephants and what we can do to help them. 

The elephant washed down and ready for the 1pm talk.

How are your teeth?

Elephant tushes are here, she could barely reach up high enough.

The logging demonstration

Whispering elephants...

Grazing

Huge Ganesh statue

 I did have the opportunity to speak to 2 of the mahouts who work with these elephants which was great, I asked them many questions and was satisfied with their answers. I also spoke to them about my ride and our fund raiser for Elephant Nature Park, they were genuinely really excited which was also really nice. All in all the elephants who live here at Australia Park Zoo have a good life, they have a lot of space, they aren't taught any tricks and their mahouts are kind. I only wish that all of the elephants in Australia could be so lucky. During the rest of my day at the zoo I visited pretty much all of the animals before walking back to Landsborough to digest the day. 

He's been gone but not forgotten for 6 years now. Legend.

What are you looking at?

Rhino grazing

Beautiful little Tassie Devil

Since my visit to Australia Zoo I have been back on the bike for a few days, climbing up the steepest climbs of the whole ride so far! Up to Maleny (Amazing view of the Glass House Mountains), Montville (Most expensive coffee at $6.80! I thought she charged me for two), Nambour to Coolum Beach and Peregian where I stayed with good friends Simon and Tahnee. Simon is a fantastic Chef and I was spoiled to enjoy his cooking again, it was great to catch up and chat about Thailand. 

15%+ Gradients riding up to Maleny!!!

But the view was worth it! Glass House Mountains

The last 3 days I have ridden from Noosa to Hervey Bay, I've had a ridiculous head wind the whole time and have experienced the worst road of the trip. I've stayed at Gympie and Maryborough before getting here to Hervey Bay this morning. From Simon and Tahnee's place I had the option of riding 20km on dirt, 3km on dirt or illegally on the Motorway, I chose the 3km of dirt which meant I had to ride an extra 20km for the day. Bugger... So I pumped up my tyres in Noosa before getting some well deserved organic/fair trade chocolate from a new shop called Embellish Organics, was a really nice little cafe serving organic food and selling local products, perfect really. Then I was back on The Bruce Highway and seriously I don't see how they can call it a highway. It's single lane driving with barely any shoulder for me to ride on and is the main truck route north! I had a few scary moments before Gympie.

No kitchen? Who needs it!!!

Day 36 of the ride took me 80km from Gympie to Maryborough, I rode a back road to try and stay off the Bruce Highway but it ended up taking much to long to make any progress, so I got back onto the main route and had the worst afternoon of the trip so far. 30km headwind with no shoulder for long stretches and speeding trucks. So after a crazy afternoon I rolled into Maryborough and planned to go down to Hervey Bay for a couple of nights to recharge and organise the final leg of the trip. From here to Cairns is about 1500km and there are only 6 big towns! So I have to plan where I'll be able to sleep and how to avoid the Bruce Highway. There could be a few interesting days coming up and tomorrow will be one of them, I've booked a whale watching tour so hopefully I'll get to see some of the worlds largest animals! 

Some interesting statistics so far:

Elephants seen: 23 (out of the 26 in Australia)
Magpie swoops: 11
Nights in the tent: 18
Ferries taken: 2
Kilometres Ridden: 2465km
Hours pedalling: 124hrs
Days riding: 37
Rest days: 11
Movies watched: 3

Stompy saying farewell...

Thanks for reading, 

Matt.