Australia Day 4: Cairns Tropical Zoo!

Neither of us slept very well our first night in Cairns, and since we were both awake, we decided to just get up, even though our alarm had not yet gone off. Once we were ready, we went to reception to check-in (we didn't do this last night because it was so late). The woman at the desk was really friendly and helped us book our cruise to the Great Barrier Reef and a day trip up to Cape Tribulation!

When we left the hostel, we walked towards town and stopped in Cairns Central, a large shopping mall, where we got some breakfast. We had a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs, mushrooms and toast, but we were cracking up because we were sitting at a table in the middle of the mall. Our table was literally right outside of the main department store! We took advantage of the A/C in the mall and used the bathrooms, ATMs and phones there as well!

Then we headed into the center of Cairns to catch the bus out to Cairns Tropical Zoo. It was about a 20 minute bus ride through some very pretty scenery - it drove along the coast. So we spent the afternoon at the zoo, which focused on animals native to this area and Australia. Some of the things we saw included wombats, various birds and snakes, crocodiles, red pandas and lemurs.
(This bird talked and said "hello" to us!)

This is the red panda:

And here's a koala in a tree!

Plus, we got to feed and pet kangaroos! There was a whole gated off area where the kangaroos were free to roam around. And we just got to walk around that area with them! It was so cool just being so close to them...not seeing them from behind a cage, but actually petting and feeding them.

They were smaller than I imagined and their faces look a lot like deer. We even saw one that had a joey in its pouch (you can see the feet and tail sticking out and also see the large lump behind her legs):
So the kangaroos were pretty cool....but the absolute highlight of the visit was getting to have our picture taken with a baby koala! We actually got to HOLD the baby koala and they were so cute!! Kelly and I were so excited about this. They were just the most adorable, docile animals! After the zoo, we rode the bus back to Cairns where we went to the grocery store to pick up some breakfast supplies for the week. We also got some stuff for lunch and went to the local fruit market as well. We stopped in Cairns Central again on our walk back to the hostel, just to cool off and sit for a minute. Back at the hostel, we tried to use the internet, but it was REALLY slow. We then hung out in our room for a bit, doing some reading for school and taking naps.

We left the hostel again later on to go back into town for dinner. We looked at a couple of menus, and then decided to eat at "The Banana Leaf." (I know you might be surprised that I would eat as a restaurant with banana in the title, but I assure you that there were NO bananas whatsoever in my dinner!) This restaurant classified itself as "modern asian cuisine," and Kelly and I both loved our meals!! We both had stir-fry (Kelly's was sweet and sour, mine was in a ginger sauce) and they were both delicious! We were very happy with our decisions!

After dinner, we strolled around town a bit more. We walked through the "Night Markets," which are very touristy, but a lot of fun. They sell lots of different stuff, but mostly souvenir-type things. We went all out with the free samples by trying lycee and passionfruit wine and also getting hand scrubs! We just poked around the different shops in the market before getting gelato and heading back to the hostel for some much needed sleep!