Billabong Sanctuary was the planned destination, and we were pushing along due to the proximity of Crocodile Feeding Time, which, as it turned out, we just missed.
I might be wrong about this, but if you’re slightly late for the scheduled 1:15 feeding you might still be able to catch the end because there are a number of crocs and gators in a variety of similar enclosures, and one suspects all of them need a feed.
It certainly seemed, when we caught the very end of the feeding session and went for a wander through the saurian selection, that the reptiles on display were taking a quiet postprandial snooze, though the most recent recipient’s return to his preferred snoozing spot was a reminder of the crocodile’s propensity for unobtrusive movement.
We made our way around that end of the sanctuary, hand feeding the odd eastern grey kangaroo, before making our way back to the flighted birds show, which to me at least, demonstrated what Billabong Sanctuary does best. It was a quietly authoritative presentation delivered in a low key manner as the feathered participants did their respective things.
When their thing involves flying back and forth between presenter’s gloved hand and nearby trees it makes for a reasonably up close and personal encounter, particularly when the shortest path between hand and perch takes them about thirty centimetres over your head.
The poisonous snakes show, on the other hand, was far less interesting, at least as far as Hughesy is concerned. I’ve seen a number of similar presentations over the years, so the information on offer wasn’t exactly new, and there’s not much you can really do with a venomous snake without placing the human participants at considerable risk, so it comes down to the observer’s interest in the subject matter.
The Visitors weren’t particularly keen on that side of things, so we wandered away, looped around the other end of the sanctuary and headed back to disperse the remainder of a packet of duck and roo food before the koala cuddling photo session started up. Not that we were in for the photo, but we thought up close and reasonably personal with the cuddly marsupial might have some appeal as far as The Visitors were concerned.
As it turned out they weren’t particularly keen, and we headed off around three-thirty, with a couple of tired travellers soon nodding off in the rear seat.
The sun was setting as we hit the outskirts of Bowen, and the colours made a visit to Grays Bay to catch the sunset across the water mandatory. A quick photo session on the beach and a loop through the car park at Horseshoe Bay saw us back at the Little House of Concrete just after six, and a hearty serve of Hughesy’s favourite slow simmered sugo alla Bolognese and a decent red wine wound the Day One proceedings up very nicely indeed.