Day 10: Sunday, June 24th

As told by Emma Henzes

It was the first morning in our hostel, the Northern Greenhouse, and I would say does the job. We were offered a humble breakfast and then whisked away on a bus to Hartley's Crocodile Adventures. We journeyed along a beautiful coastline highway, while the long-awaited sun glared across the ocean. At Hartley's, we saw a large array of native Australian animals, such as emus, koalas, wallabies, crocs, snakes, birds and frogs. 

We went on a croc boat tour with a funny tour guide and some lazy crocs. Our tour guide compared alligators and crocs to give us Americans a better perspective on how deadly these creatures can be. Crocs are like Mike Tyson, and alligators, well, more like Justin Bieber. Apparently, in the winter, they don't like to move much even for food.

However, we did get to see a few good chomps. He didn't see us, but we saw 2nd largest croc in capacity in Australia. Toothless, Blind Ted. He was big, to say the least. We also had the pleasure of meeting Hagrid, a large croc who had "anger issues." 

Meeting all these crocs didn't stop me from trying the freshly farmed Croc meat for lunch. Its calamari-like texture was much better than I had expected and I would definitely have it again. 

Hartley's Crunchy Crocodile Salad With Asian Dressing

I particularly enjoyed holding the Koala for a picture and playing with the Wallabies and Kangaroos. We took lots of selfies together and scratched each other's back. It was like playing with weird looking dogs who would roll over to get their stomachs rubbed. 

One of my favorite memories of this day actually made me tear up. During the snake show, the host asked a question and a very excited tourist raised her hand from all the back in the nosebleeds, volunteering herself for a position that was never offered. The host, confused at first, decided to run with it because the lady was running down the steps toward him. She quickly got herself inside the gated area, waiting for a Python to draped around her shoulders. She then proceeded to shriek as the snake crawled around her. With all eyes on her and the host asking her a question, she ignores everything, looks at her friend snapping pictures, and... she throws up a peace sign. This is when I started crying from laughter. Immediately after she got the Instagram-worthy picture, she dumped the snake and ran away shrieking and laughing, never to be seen again.

Overall, this day brought us closer to the Australian wildlife and brought lots of laughs and smiles to all of the group. We learned important first aid for snake bites, although the host said the overwhelming majorirty of victims are middle-aged intoxicated males. So, hopefully, I will just keep this as trivial information!