I have been planning this trip to the zoo for a while. We've had to reschedule a few times due to everyone getting sick, but FINALLY this weekend we got there.
BJ and I have had a busy couple of days, so the early start Saturday morning was not ideal but we wanted to get in there early.
On the way we picked up my niece, Kaia who has just celebrated her 11th birthday and into the city we went.
It is such a short drive to get to the zoo now, not like when we were little.
First thing we did when we got in was get the camera out, only to find that the battery didn't charge. I was sooo disappointed! I'd plugged it in the night before and left it to charge till morning. What the hell man?!
I very quickly got over that when I saw a sign that said 'free ranging lemurs'..... yes please!!!!
It was soo cool to see them up close and roaming wherever they pleased. They had these cute little huts and when you looked inside you would just see a massive pile of them all balled up together sleeping.
From there the day only got better. Audrey finally got to see a hippo, which is the animal she was talking about for the whole drive. It was a little bit of a let down because he has his butt to us and she couldn't see what it was. But that's ok because she got to see sooo many other cool animals.
Watching her face when she finally spots one in their enclosure was the best.
The animals were out to put on a show. The tiger came right up to the glass, the orangutans were playing peek-a-boo, the elephant was playing with his ball and the tapirs were doing whatever tapirs do.
There were only a few that couldn't be spotted in their enclosure.
Through all the monkey enclosures Audrey would wave at each monkey and say 'helllooo' then kiss the glass every time she saw one. It was soo entertaining (and quite unhygienic)
We went around a corner and there was this weird lady parked in front of a window watching the spider monkeys. I got really excited because one was albino and I said 'look Audrey that one is white' and the lady responds 'That's the female!!'
I smiled and continued my conversation with Audrey. 'Wow, look! What's that one eating, Audrey?' And the lady replies 'He WAS eating corn before!!!'
I named that lady 'The Queen of the Zoo'. (We saw her several times that day.)
The highlight of the day was watching Audrey's reaction to the seals and the stingrays. She loves watching them swim around and when we went above ground one of the seals jumped out of the water and she thought it was the greatest thing ever!!!
In the butterfly enclosure I FINALLY had a butterfly land on me, but BJ wasn't fast enough with his camera to get a photo.
Audrey did soo much walking.... and eating. She was really good and only had a few moments where she lost it, mostly because she was exhausted.
While we were at the giant tortoises, one of the tortoises started climbing on the other. It was standing up on the side of the tortoise which looks really funny. This strange woman comes up with her kids (who were maybe a little older than Audrey) and starts telling them about how 'When Charles Darwin first saw a giant tortoise he thought he could ride them'... then she looked up and saw the tortoise climbing up on the other one and in the same breath says 'oh and that tortoise is climbing on top of the other tortoise!! Let's go kids!!'
I thought she was joking and I laughed sooo hard... but no, she was serious which made me laugh even harder and she did not appreciate that.
She walked off in a hurry while the kids cried about not getting to see the tortoise.
I probably shouldn't have laughed at her but it was just too funny. I mean it's a tortoise, they aren't the fastest animals so even if it was climbing up to get it's mate on, that wasn't going to happen for a loooooooooooooooooooooooong time.
So I named that lady 'The Prude of the Zoo'.
7 years ago we took Kaia to the zoo. She was nearly 4 at the time and it was fun to go back with her and remember all the things we did that day. The best memory of that trip was that Kaia was a map nazi. No one else was allowed to touch or even look at the map. She was sooo interested in the map that she didn't pay attention to the animals and eventually we had to make the map disappear.
We decide to re-take a couple of photos from that trip with Kaia and I just love them.
At the end of our adventure we went into the gift shop to let Audrey pick a toy. We walked out with a hippo and a tapir toy and she's spent the rest of the weekend feeding them and telling Gordon & Cooper that they are hers.
It was such a fun day and I can't wait to do it again. Next time we plan to go to Werribee Open Range Zoo.
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