Australia: Yes, there's life after Steve
Email this storyPrint this story 5:00AM Friday March 16, 2007
By Anne Gibson
A koala finds the ideal site to take a nap after some visitor-spotting
Bindi is an arachnid sprouting eight legs, pictured grinning on the side of an icecream truck parked on a hot asphalt path.
Serving the cold scoops just outside the emu enclosure is a blood-covered bride, with black eyes and a tattered dress.
Opening a gate near a paddock of quietly grazing wombats is a whacky woodland fairy in punk boots.
Crikey. If we'd known Australia Zoo on Halloween was going to be such a whoooo-hooooo wonder we would have gone another day.
But arrangements have already been made with Australia Zoo and Mooloolaba Business & Tourism and October 31 is the family's allotted day to visit Beerwah's famous attraction.
Herald travel editor Jim Eagles has given a very definite brief in Auckland before we left: "Find out what Australia Zoo is like after Steve Irwin."
Six of us - grandparents, parents and teenagers - arrive cheerful enough after coasting down the Bruce Highway in our rental from Mooloolaba on a day predicted to hit 27C.
Keen to see the Crocodile Hunter's place and focus on things of this world rather than the next, our cheery group have set aside the whole day for the visit.
But death stalks us at every turn.
After a spirited welcome from Louise Martin, the zoo's international marketing and PR co-ordinator, we come across out first poignant turn at the enclosure for Aldabran tortoises and Australian native turtles, where we are confronted by a memorial to Harriet, a giant Galapagos land tortoise. She born in 1830 but, like Wildlife Warrior Steve Irwin, died this year. Irwin died on September 6, Harriet on June 23.
A sign tells us that Irwin's daughter, Bindi, had a special bond with the tortoise. and that "Bindi loved to visit Harriet and give her some hibiscus flowers - her favourite treat." Our spirits sink as we gaze at Harriet's picture.
Tanith Roberts, dressed as a punk forest fairy, takes us along to meet the wombats Chisel, Kato, Burrow, Minibus and Dozer, who has a joey.
Claudia, a wombat keeper, is sweeping up poos but pauses to tell us how wombats and koalas are closely related.
We ask her how staff are coping after Steve. She shrugs: "You've got to go on, haven't you?" She studies the ground.
Two other wombat keepers pick up Burrow, strap her into a full body harness and lift her on to a little blue trolley. "It's meet-and-greet time," a zookeeper explains as he tows away the muscled marsupial.
Up in the rainforest aviary, two kookaburras are using their oversize beaks to peck the ground. "Maggots," yells a teenager, jumping back when he realises what they are feasting on right by his feet.
By the time we reach the red kangaroos the sun is blazing down.
The junior werewolf is in a sweat and has taken off his huge hairy head, which he is carrying under one arm. Werewolf Mother, orange horns sprouting from her head, is arguing with him over who should carry the blow-up pitchfork.
Brother Vampire is tugging discontentedly at his black cape. His facepaint has streaked in the heat. No one in our party comments on the depressing sight of combating Halloweeners and we push on for Tiger Temple, praising the wide paths and beautifully tended gardens.
The zoo is built on such a grand scale and its buildings and exhibits are so huge that the whole place has the air of Jurassic Park - before the dinosaurs took over.
Near a boundary, trucks throw up clouds of red dust, pushing ahead with the first stage of an A$48 million ($55 million) expansion which has started in the Asian section.
The zoo gets about 800,000 visitors a year and staff look forward to breaking the one million mark.
We pass khaki-clad zookeepers leading the elephants on their daily walkabout as we head for the Crocoseum, the 5000-seat central attraction with its waterways and giant screen that magnifies what's going on.
Before the show starts, the eerie sight of energetic Steve bursts on to the screen, leaping on crocs, driving through swamps and generally being the Wildlife Warrior, his larger-than-life voice booming out above the noise of the crowd.
Terri encourages us to stay at the zoo all day.
But no hope of seeing her or the children. All three are in Singapore visiting its famous bird park, where Terri told reporters the children had enjoyed the playground as well as watching the birds.
Before us in their pools in the middle of the Crocoseum, saltwater crocodiles look up at a hellish parade of children dressed as ghouls, witches, goblins, vampires, Draculas, grim reapers and fairies. A happy-looking bumble bee wins the competition. Everyone smiles.

Giftshops sell Terri's Cougar Collection, her shirts and pants branded with a paw-print "to capture my love for the cougar, the spirit of the mountains and my desire to create a garment for real women".

Bindiwear is a smaller-size range of khaki shorts and shirts. A flatscreen TV shows early footage of Steve with Sui, the Irwin's beloved dog. Sui is also dead. Beneath the Crocoseum, toy red-eyed witches are waiting for buyers. Handclapping sets off their internal electronics to make them jiggle, gaggle and cackle in unison. Hilarious.

In another shady area, pegged to both sides of bays on a high wire fence, is Steve Irwin memorabilia. Rows of khaki shirts with eulogies, flowers, poems, balloons and wreaths are displayed to "Stevo", with thanks for giving the animals a voice and allowing crocs to rule.

Halloween is a day on which the living are encouraged to laugh in the face of death. So maybe the last grim guffaw goes to the eulogist who speculated that Steve's last words as he suffered that fatal attack might have been "Crikey. The little bugger got me."