Friday, December 11, 2009

a day at taronga

Today we spent the day at the zoo, we got up nice and early (8am on Saturday is early!) and drove over there. We would have caught a ferry if I wasn't pregnant, but I thought all the walking and waiting might be a bit much after a day wandering at the zoo. 

Stylish was very impressed with the Corroboree frog breeding program that was on display, and I was very interested in how many of them there are in captivity when there are only about 50 in the wild. Taronga is working on their resistance to a bacterial bug (the main reason they are critically endangered) to make their release back into the Alpine area where they live, more effective, and hopefully to replenish their numbers in the long term. She impressed us all with her reptile knowledge about various species which she rattled off before she had a chance to read the information next to the animal, she is such a wealth of information!

Spikee was kind of interested in stuff, and yet more interested in bolting about like a mad thing. he must have ran about two kilometres up and down hills. When asked what his favourite animal from today was he said "de effant" which translated into English is "the elephant". He also liked the part of the seal show where the seal was balancing a ball on it's nose and playing catch with the keeper. He was also really interested in the goats that he got to pat - don't get me started coz I really want a goat.

The zoo has changed so much since I was a child. One of the changes is the play areas that are kid friendly. There is a wading pool with a boat in it that Spikee loved, and we all dipped our hot feet in the cool water for a bit. There's also a large play area all constructed from wood, and it had a whole water play area with water wheels and water falls, and pumps, and a sand pit where we spent some time letting the kids just be kids without having to be interested in stuff! After half an hour there Spikee's mood improved notably.

Stylish got to climb inside the old bear enclosure and was horrified at the darkness and the tiny space that the enormous bears used to live in. it's probably less than three metres of floor space, and a large part of that is taken up with a water trough. 

All round it was a lovely unlearnt day! Now we just have to muster up the energy to cook something for dinner! We have our last lettuce ready to harvest, and we also have about 13 tomatoes. And on that note, I'm gong to go and water everything and get some dinner organised.






3 comments:

Louise said...

What a great day, and nice weather for it as well-

Kez said...

That's a great playground there, isn't it? We went a few years ago when Billy was about 4 or 5 - he was far more interested in the playground than the animals! Which was fairly frustrating given the entry price :)

Alice and Mother said...

Yeah it was gorgeous weather, it wasn't a stinker!!! And with plenty of sun cream none of us got fried either. The first thing I did when we got there was buy a hat though lol

The playground is a wonderful addition, definitely! And yes .... Spikee would have spent all day there and not seen any animals happily! Fortunately we got in for free lol Withouth the pass it would have cost $103, which is a hell of a lot!