MOOLOOLABA AND A ZOO

February 10, 2025

MOOLOOLABA AND A ZOO

MOOLOOLABA - Try saying that fast three times!

We arrived around 8 am in Mooloolaba, which is a small suburb per se on Australia’s East coast. It is about 56 miles north of Brisbane and is a charming and bustling port. Mooloolaba is derived from the Aboriginal word mulu meaning “snapper fish” or mulla meaning “red-bellied black snake.”

We anchored out in the sea because the port wasn't capable of handling our large ship. This means that we needed to tender into the port today. The seas were VERY rough, so the 30 minute tender ride was a bit ROCKY! As we got nearer to the coast, we were entertained by surfers and jet skis! The port was bustling with shoppes, bars and restaurants. Here is a photo collage of the cute port where our tender dropped us off.

On the agenda today is an excursion to Steve Irwin’s famous Australian Zoo! As a part of our tour, Viking contributes funds to the Irwins’ Koala Hospital, which cares for and saves the lives of koalas across Australia. This non-profit has been crucial to the species survival, especially after the recent fires that have devastated their natural habitat.

It was about a 30 minute coach ride to get to the Australian Zoo. The zoo is still operated by the Irwin family and I felt privileged to visit there. All the animals are housed in their natural habitat and vegetation around the park is plentiful. I had such high hopes of capturing lots of photos of the zoo animals. Unfortunately, Mark and I apparently arrived at “nap time” so the many of animals I wanted to snap were sleeping. We had three hours at the zoo and decided to focus our time on the native Australian animals since the African animals would be seen many other times along this cruise adventure. Here are some of the animals that we did manage to photograph. Enjoy - we sure did!