Today our whole group was able to pay a visit to Hartley’s Crocodile Farm which was maybe 45 minutes to an hour away from our hostel. I must say that the crocodile farm was one of my favorite places that I was able to experience on this trip. At first, I was skeptical only because I thought it was just solely a crocodile farm. Since I’m from Florida, I’m used to seeing alligators every so often so to see something fairly similar such as a crocodile, I assumed it wouldn’t be the greatest trip ever.

When we arrived, we saw that not only were there crocodile information centers along with boat/land tours, but also a bird sanctuary which also included a private area for cassowaries and emus, koala area where you can observe them as well as cuddle and take a picture with them, and a field of kangaroos and wallabies!

The crocodile tours were very interesting. They informed us on how they bred the crocodiles, how they are raised, and what they end up being used for. They mostly are used commercially and are used for their leather but they also informed us that every part of the crocodile is used and nothing is gone to waste. The cassowaries and emus were larger than life. The cassowaries had beautiful color patterns and large dinosaur looking legs and the emus had this death stare that could kill if you were looking straight at it. The koalas were extremely sleepy as they should be due to their “extremely tiresome” life and the kangaroos and wallabies were amazing!

The kangaroos that I saw were mostly just resting in their resting area in the field but the wallabies that we encountered were extremely friendly and came up to us to take a nibble of our fruit. The wallabies had to be my favorite to spend time with. They were soft and lovable and one of the best things to watch was when they hopped away on their big hoppers!