On Monday my wife, daughter and I accompanied 2 of our grandkids to the world renown Australia Zoo established by the legendary Steve Irwin, to be Zookeepers for the day
It is a special innovation at Australia Zoo during Queensland, Australia school holidays
The entry fee of about $150 for 1 adult and 1 x 4yo - 7yo for the day includes 3 hours with a ranger educating the group about habitat and the environment whilst the child gets the opportunity to interact with live friendly animals such as 300kg Galapagos Tortoise, Curlew, Echidna and a blue tongue lizard. They are also provided a healthy pre arranged lunch and supervised at the Wildlife Warrior Show at the Crocoseum stadium featuring giant crocodile, giant snakes, free flying birds, Comorants, Hawks, Macaws, Parrots and Storks
The Wildlife Show was conducted by Terri Irwin, daughter Bindi with her husband Chandler. Unfortunately, Robert couldn’t be there as he had a commitment in London
The day seems to pass very quickly as there is so much to absorb, it is impossible to see every section of the Zoo and I am in awe that Steve created such an incredible legacy for local and international tourists who out-numbered the locals by about 10 to 1
Wednesday, I collected a new car which took about 2 hours as the technology of pairing my phone and Ipod to the vehicle was so challenging for the salesperson that despite calling on other employees expertise, the car system required an upgrade to the system. What chance would an extremely technically challenged dummy like me have of getting pairing done when the experts took 2 hours 🫢
Thursday was my birthday and my wife and I enjoyed an early dinner at a local restaurant so we could be home in time to watch our Brisbane Lions AFL team play the Geelong Cats at the “cattery” in Geelong where the Cats dominate teams. The last 15 years the Cats have played 108 games at the "cattery" for 97 wins. So it was a surprise that our under strength Lions team who have 5 of our best players out injured, kick 8 goals straight in the first quarter and toughed out a sensational win 123 – 81. Best birthday present I could receive
Saturday is parkrun day and I headed to the Sunshine Coast region about 75 minute drive to complete Mudjimba Beach parkrun for the 10th time which increased my parkrun P index to 10, meaning that I have completed 10 runs at 10 different parkruns in Australia. The next challenge is to increase my P index to 11 which means repeating each of the 10 one more time and completing another parkrun 11 times. There is no limit to the number of parkrun challenges to focus on
Sunday is junior parkrunday and my role yesterday was Run Director, essencially I am in charge of the event. I managed 23 volunteers performing roles of course check, course setup, first timer brief, warmup, marshalling, tail walker, timekeeping, funnel mangers, tokens, barcode scanning, token sorting, post event packup, roster updating and results processing
I also had to deal with 5 kids vomiting in the finish funnel, a volvo vehicle key lost by a parent when running with their child and a parent and child searching the 2k grass course for a tooth lost by the child during the run. Good luck trying to find that tooth for the anticipated tooth fairy reward
To state that post event coffee was enjoyable is a gross understatement but I wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less
To experience the joy and smiles of the kids and parents particularly those kids who achieve milestones such as 11, 21, 50 or 100 runs, then giving them a high five and presenting a wrist band is very rewarding
Naturally the most smiling parent was the person who I returned their volvo token to
Today was back to the grind of an easy 8k run along the beautiful Redcliffe foreshore with winter friendly temperature of 12 degrees centigrade at 6am
