Onto the tourist destinations of the Sunshine coast and to step back in time with a visit to the Big Pineapple! In it’s heyday when this highway was the only one to travel we would stop and visit the Big Pineapple take a walk to the top and see the displays, take some classic pics and then enjoy a pineapple sundae – yummo! Now the Big Pineapple is Heritage listed and needs a little bit of work and love. A lot of the us who enjoyed it as a tourist destination when we were kiddos still appreciate it for it’s nostalgia and it’s grandeur.

On this rainy Monday we also took a wander through the Maroochy Bushland Botanic Garden and was an excellent place to take the kids for a wander through the sculpture garden. For a change they all enjoyed posing with the sculptures especially the sculptures of the animals – the bottom pic is a wombat that they all loved by an artist from South Australia.

A couple of my favourite sculptures in the garden – Snake made from Black Chillagoe Marble and Man of Nature carved from Sandstone.

Definitely on the tour itinerary this year was a trip to the legendary Australia Zoo! The kids really enjoyed their time at the zoo especially seeing the show of the crocodiles at the Crocoseum. We had lunch at the food court and managed to see a spectacular display of birds flying around the stadium and landing right in the audience as a warm up for the big crocs!

Finally the kids got to touch a kangaroo – the kangas were in their rest area, some were quite confident and hopped right up to the visitors for a pat and the hope of some food. Koalas are always cute and generally always asleep! The croc in the pic above was with the Australia Zoo stars Terri, Bindi and Bob showing us how these crocs in action. Steve Irwin was an Aussie legend and Australia Zoo is a testament to his dedication and care for the conservation of animals especially the crocodile.

Australia Zoo is huge and requires a bit of planning to navigate to the animals you would like to see. We choose to see the African animals instead of Bindi’s Island with animals inspired by the tropics. The Giraffes are always cool to see and we saw them having their afternoon snack and saw a baby giraffe close by just looking on as he couldn’t reach the food! On our way to Africa we wandered through the Asian animal display and saw the ever popular tigers – you can see what the crowd was like when we went, it was busy with school holiday traffic.

We enjoyed spending the day at the zoo with our friends from Portland walking many trails that day and seeing quite a few animals! Good times at the zoo, how about you?