Mackenzie : Today we dropped Bentley at Puppy Day Care and then went to the crocodile park and saw every dangerous animal was there and lots of crocs. We went to the water park and me and dad went down a water slide, it was pitch black in it. I went down all the water slides. Then I went into the water park and there was a big bucket, it was filled with water and it tipped, we nearly fell over. Then we went to the market, I got a dress. It was raining.
We booked Bentley into a boarding kennel for today and he will stay the night :( He is in an enclosure with lots of little dogs and gets his own kennel to sleep in at night, it looked like a kids crèche as they had all the plastic climbing equipment, slides, clam shell pools, balls etc. It was hard to leave him but we had a full day of no dogs allowed activities planned. First stop was Crocodylus Park, which is a crocodile park with a few native & exotic animals,100's of crocs and a little mini zoo. The first tour started at 10 so we had a bit of time to have a look around before it started, some of the crocs are massive weighing between 400-500 kgs. We were given a tour by Adam, who was really informative. It was by far the hottest day we had felt and we were all suffering including Adam giving the tour. He fed the crocs on a wire pulley system and to watch these huge animals lunge out of the water to get their food was awesome and to hear their jaws crash shut is terrifying, the noise was so loud. He also explained that most people think that fresh water and salt water crocs are never found together - not true, that salt water crocs don't live in fresh water - not true or that fresh water crocs are safe to swim with - not true. The kids fed the crocs too from a pole and he puts pieces of chicken on a string. He said on certain days they feed them whole chickens and they jump higher than the cage to get them as they are their favourites. I have always had a healthy respect for these massive creatures and it was only reinforced further today for me. We then got to hold baby crocs, they made the cutest sounds, I was happy to touch them but Dan convinced me to hold one so another brave thing I've done! Of course the kids were straight in, no fear and were really happy & comfortable holding them. They were soft, really soft, I expected scaly like a fish I think but they were lovely. We then walked around their zoo section which had such gorgeous animals. My favourite were the little fluffy monkeys, the kids of course thought the baboons bottoms were hilarious. The cassowary had such brilliant bright colors and the iguana was a beautiful green. There were just enough animals to make it a zoo and not too many to make it a long drawn out day. The lady on the desk suggested a water park for us to go to, we were going to the wave pool in the city so we thought we would check out the park first. This park was amazing, run by the YMCA and free. It had 3 water slides, a huge pool and a water play park like nothing I have seen, all maned by life guards. Also there was a normal play park, skate park, bbqs etc. We had a fantastic time and stayed for hours, Dan and the kids did the water activities and all 3 slides, I was very happy in the pool, it was so relaxing and there was hardly anyone there, the kids would climb to the top of the slide tower and slide straight down, no line at all. Dan went on the kids stuff with them and I can not explain what happened except that it was hilarious and without a word of a lie, everyone there was cracking up so much, 10 or 20 people had their day made by Dan for sure. There is a few photos, I will add them at the bottom and hope it is as funny in photos as it was on the day. I have no idea how something like this is free, it was so well maintained and run. While we were having lunch there were 5 junior football teams arrive but even with them having fun and kicking balls in the water there was still plenty of room, it is such an open space, we have nothing like this in Melbourne but in saying that it would only have a limited use due to our weather. We stopped in at the shopping centre again and they were celebrating their 40th birthday. We got the biggest piece of cake at coles and got to meet the hand from the coles advert. I couldn't convince the kids to have a photo with him, I was weird they said?! Then we got banana bread from the girls at boost, the kids had no choice this time the boost girls pushed them to the over sized dressed up boost cup and I snapped a picture. Our free day was going great. We headed on to Mindel Beach Markets again, it was very grey and it looked like a storm was coming, one of the stall holders said that this weather has been worse than the build up, the lady at Crocodylus had said the same so it wasn't just us being from Melbourne not being able to handle the heat. We made our way around the market and the stall holders started to pack away so we gathered they had a sixth sense on the pending storm. We finished looking, watched the fire throwing man who dropped more things than he caught- the kids were impressed we were not, we watched the singing/didgeridoo playing puppet monkey- very cool, we were impressed the kids were not and then the hula hoop circus performers- didn't quite get the reason it was a circus but fun to watch. By now we were ready to leave, too late the heavens opened up and it was the heaviest rain I have ever felt, huge drops and heavy, it was hilarious trying to run to the car, some people didn't care and by the time we got to the car we were soaked to the bone. So we were in traffic gridlock as this market is so busy and we were all trying to leave at once, we switched off the engine and sat and laughed at what just happened. The temperature dropped instantly and was such a relief. Next our thoughts went to Bentley who by now was in bed and locked inside in air conditioning but we were worried about the thunder and lightening as he is scared of it. Our big night out with no dog was cut short so we headed back to the van and watched a movie and listened to the rain.
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