Feb. 8

We anchored in the bay near Mooloolaba. With a population of 8700, we expected a sleepy little town. When our tender arrived at the dock, we saw a vibrant oceanfront community. It looked like lots more visitors than residents. A very nice beach and 80* temperature evidently is attractive to Australians. 

We had at least an hour before our bus was to depart to Steve Irwin’s (crocodile hunter) Australian Zoo. Our walk around revealed a nice walkway along the coast which had plenty of shopping and eating opportunities. We didn’t need any food but the 50% off on womens clothes was interesting to one of us. Since it’s February they, of course, had an end-of-Summer sale.

The most interesting part of our walk was the drone operator….Karla

Karla here: While walking along the crowded beach, we noticed two lifeguards operating a drone, bringing it in for a landing. I learned that they use drones to patrol the beach for sharks and also swimmers who may be having problems.

The lifeguard noted that there had been a shark (great white) fatality within the month that occurred within an hour of Mooloolaba. The sharks do not have a taste for humans but they are curious and, like toddlers, learn by biting or mouthing things they see that are not clearly fish. A bite can lead to significant blood loss and thus, death. The government has invested in shark nets along the ocean; some have baited hooks hanging down and others not. The nets have not proven too effective so they are using drones to patrol; the guide noted that he could clear the surf of swimmers in 2 minutes with the variety of resources available including walkie talkies, jet skis, rescue boards and more. The jet skis are sometimes used to herd and push the sharks away from the shallower water. Apparently the Aussies’ success in drone patrols has reached the US and recently forest service rangers have visited to learn more about how they could deploy the drones to fight forest fires.

The Australian Zoo is a very nice facility full of predictable creatures…koalas, wombats, roos, crocs, snakes, etc. They also had imports from Asia and Africa. They no longer allow people to hold koalas (too much stress on the koalas) but we did pet one. They sleep so much that I doubt that it noticed. We had visited the Zoo with kids many years ago so didn’t need too much time. It was worthwhile, but we returned after about 2 hours. I decided to make my way to the tender and our ship. The other half of our party headed for the Summer sale.