A Family Day Out at Australia Zoo

 

Last Saturday, we finally had a day together as a family, after Kaleb worked nearly a whole month without a day off. We have been wanting to take the kids to Australia Zoo for a while now and it was also on my 30 before 30 list.

 

This is just a small selection of photos from our day, but what I loved most was seeing Roman's face every time we got to a different animal enclosure. He lit up, asked all manner of questions about the animals and listened intently as we read to him from the information plaques at each animal. He told me that he only really liked the dangerous animals, not the Koala's!

 

He had a turn at feeding an elephant, which scared the pants off him. I think he was pretty awestruck at the sheer size of it.

 

The highlight for me was seeing the Giraffe's and a Rhino. I could never have imagined how large a Rhino really is and I couldn't stop looking at him.

 

Leo was such a trooper all day, mostly content to stay in his pram. Looking at the animals wasn't really something that held his interest, although you can see in one of the photo's above that he did find a Frill-Necked Lizard in one of the gardens and spent a good amount of time chatting to it.

 

We wisely took our own lunch and snacks, knowing that it would cost a fair amount for the entry into the zoo, and it was a welcome break to find a playground at morning tea time and then sitting down to lunch on the grass in the shade.

 

Surrounding the grassed area where we had lunch were some "funpark" rides for the kids (free!) and Roman had a go on the jumping castle. On the other side, was a sandpit, complete with cave and "fossils" that the kids could discover.

 

We spent around 4 hours at the zoo and saw almost all the animals, but we decided not to see any of the main crocodile shows, as it would probably have been difficult to get Leo to sit still in the grandstand.

 

On the way out we grabbed some ice-creams for the kids, and then they both fell asleep in the car on the ride home.

 

Roman has spent all week telling everyone he sees about our trip to the zoo, and has been surprising me with his remembering of animal facts (like, Red Panda's have 6 fingers on each hand!).

 

It was fun!

 

x Shara