Gold Coast - Paradise Country Farm

When we alighted from the coach, it was quite a relief because we finally got a chance to move around and exercise our legs a little. The 1-minute walk to the tram which brought us from the coach park to the main lobby of the farm, itself, already felt good.

The Paradise Country Farm is actually an Aussie-themed tourist farm. From our pre-departure reading of some information on the web, we knew it sits on something like 12 hectares of land (sounds huge, hor?) and our half-day tour would include visits to some koala, kangaroo and emu enclosures, some cowboy/horsemanship displays, boomerang-throwing demonstrations and sheep-shearing shows.

Seemed exciting, right?! So we were looking forward to a great experience of the Aussie way of farm life despite feeling rather tired from the lack of sleep onboard the plane and needing a shower quickly to refreshen ourselves up.

When we arrived at the main lobby, it was very clear that this is a tourism set-up. The little gift shop located there had arrays of boomerangs, soft toys and some t-shirts. This was very similar to what would greet visitors to our very own Sentosa - very touristy and.... it was airconditioned!!

Our tour leader guided us first to the animal enclosures. To the disappointment of some of the adults in our tour group, the kangaroos and koalas which we saw were rather small and looked somewhat immature. Due to the heat of the noon sun (we suspected that this was the reason), most of these animals also looked very lethargic. But we managed to capture some photos of some of these animals anyway.



When we were at the enclosures, we saw this particular animal behind the fence. It didn't look familiar at all. All of us had no idea what it was. Although a nearby sign read 'Emu', WY was very certain it wasn't an emu, which he explained was a bird which looked very much like an ostrich (see above pic). Eventually, I walked several metres to find the relevant sign displaying its name. It was this:



Then WF took over the camera. Soon, we started to queue to take that 'pose with our koala' photo. We paid A$14 for that single shot. This additional photo taken with our camera was done by our tour leader.



After that, we proceeded to the Animal Nursery. This was basically a children's area. There were piglets, chicks, sheep, goats, cows and guinea pigs. A rather smelly corner, but we got up close to the kids (no, not our children, but the baby goats!).



Next, we went for the all-famous Sheep-Shearing Show. The shearer explained the shearing process and a brief history of how shearing tools have progressed through the years. He was a very jovial entertainer, and the whole show was quite enjoyable. The Chinese, Japanese and Korean interpreters who had to take turns to repeat (they actually rattled on and on!) whatever the shearer had said were a little 'irritating' though.

We never really knew that there were so many types of sheep whose fur could be 'harvested' for human use. At least 6 different sheep were assembled before us, with some really looking like they needed a good 'haircut' alright. Check out the one below, for example.



The shearer explained that after the sheep has been sheared, it would produce lanolin and this would protect it from its nakedness. The animal does not feel cold.

After the show, we bought some Lanolin cream (no, not to keep ourselves warm but more for moisturising purpose) and souvenir keychains. Then we gave our hands a good scrub at the wash-area before proceeding to the restaurant for our Aussie Outback lunch. And oh boy, that turned out to be quite an experience!

The food was nothing to cry about. We ordered 2 fish fillets and 2 chicken chops. The chicken turned out to be ok (R said so) but the fish tasted awfully bland. Accompanying condiments didn't impress me at all. Neither did the bitter-tasting shreds of vegetables which they called coleslaw.

What really put me off, however, was the army of flies which persistently attacked us at the table whilst we were seated!!!!!! Oh, man! It was really terrible to be swatting flies and shooing the giant flies constantly as we tried to put the food into our mouths! It was so appalling that I had no mood whatsoever, for this Outback lunch anymore although the 'live' singing by an Aussie lady cowgirl did sound quite good. (I thought I was the only 'fussy' one making a big fuss over the flies but as it turned out, when we chatted with our fellow tour group members later, all of us had been quite put-off by the swarms of flies.) So much so for that Aussie Outback lunch experience....

Needless to say, I was in such foul mood then that I didn't even remember to take any photo of that lunch. Sigh.

Right after lunch, we proceeded to an open area for a demonstration of how Billy Tea is traditionally prepared. At this camp-fire, we were joined by many other tourists. Some were Japanese or Korean. Many others were mainland Chinese. (So you can guess easily why I didn't really enjoy this segment at all.)



Basically, the Billy Tea is brewed in some tin over the camp-fire. And according to the show-master, it is customary to have some Damper (a kind of bread created by baking kneaded dough in a 'bucket' placed over the same camp-fire) too, as they enjoy the Billy Tea. Erm, the soot-lined black bucket looked quite familiar, I thought - almost like the night-soil buckets we used to see in the 1970's in the kanpong! Hahahaaha....

After the show ended, we were all invited to try the many mugs of Billy Tea and some Damper at a nearby area. As expected, the mainland Chinese flocked to these free drinks and snacks, elbowing many of us out till they had had their fill. Sigh. In the pic, you can see that the mainland Chinese had mostly moved on to the next show already by the time our tour group people had a chance to check out the Billy Tea.

Next was the Horsemanship Show. The show itself was ok but again, the mainland Chinese (many of them had, by then, started to light up their cigarettes after their Billy Tea and Damper snacks) clung themselves to the fence and left no room for even young children like WF. Very selfish and kiasu behaviour, much much worse than us Singaporeans.



When the Horsemanship Show ended, we moved on to the next area for Whip Cracking and Boomerang Throwing demonstrations. The very long and flexible whip was made with kangaroo skin. And it really gave that loud, clear and crisp cracking sound - quite impressive. The tip of the whip was made with kangaroo hair.



The Boomerang was traditionally used by the Aborigines for hunting. The hunters would hold the Boomerangs over their right shoulders at a 45-degree angle and throw them at the kangaroo or emu which they were aiming to capture. If the Boomerang hit the animal, the stunned (and possibly, injured) animal would be captured; if the Boomerang missed its target, it would fly (with reduced speed because of the angle at which it whad been thrown and because of the design/surface of the Boomerang) to return to the hunter. It would usually take much time to master the skill to 'catch' the returning Boomerang, though.

After this, there was a final show. The star was a Shepherd Dog. It cleverly gathered the handful of sheep and guided them into their pen skilfully. The boys took some pics with the Dog and of the sheep.



By then, it was already late afternoon. So we trod across the show area, taking care to avoid as much as possible the droppings on the grass - what could we expect? This was a farm, afterall. (Come to think of it, we also took a similar photo when we went to Ballenburg last time, hor? Hahhaa...)

We boarded the tram which brought us to our waiting coach and were soon on our way to our hotel in Surfers' Paradise.