alma park zoo

Today we went to Kt's school and picked up this years book pack.

Then we dropped it off at home and headed to Alma Park Zoo for the day.

We arrived there at 10.45am and left at 3.45pm.

We managed to get around and see all the exhibits and most of the information shows although Kt lost interest in those by the afternoon when the marmoset feeding took place. She preferred to wander and look at things at her own leisure rather than crowding together to listen to the keeper talk.

We did watch the koala talk and got a very brief pat of a koala at the end ... as well as the reptile talk which involved a snake and a small crocodile. I was keen to pat the snake which felt quite unusual ... Kt didn't want to ... but ended up doing it anyway.

It turns out that she has already in her short little life patted about 3 or 4 snakes and crocodiles (although I think the koala may have been a first!).

Both this year at prep and last year at kindy the kids have experienced a reptile show and each got to pat various unusual creatures.... unlike mum, who has not had many such close encounters.

I was a bit disoriented when we first arrived and found it difficult to follow their maps, but after a few hours we got a few landmarks worked out and by the end of the day were able to successfully navigate our way through.

I took heaps of photos until my camera ran out of battery ... many photo opportunities naturally presented themselves when I could do nothing about capturing them, but you are able to relax and take things in more when you don't have to worry about recording things so in some ways it was a good thing.

The cost of entry is fairly expensive but if you buy an annual pass which is something like 2 and a half times the cost of a normal entry you can go back as many times as you like in a year.

I am tempted to buy one each for me and KT because it is a really nice day out, full of exercise and even during the school holidays was not very crowded. If you don't try to catch the shows and just meander around at your own leisure you can have a fairly enjoyable and unhurried, uncrowded experience. Even one visit each month or every two months or even each set of school holidays would get you your moneys worth ... and it is really close to home ... and babies are free so I could wheel the baby around there in the pram and keep Kt pretty busy.

We bought two bags of feed and discovered that some of the animals were much more fun to feed than others ... everyone seemed to go and try and feed the kangaroos, which were no longer very interested ... while other animals were forgotten.

There are two parts to the park which is split down the middle by the main car park.

We only ventured over to the second half in the afternoon after lunch. There we fed two donkeys, a whole herd of fallow deer, a cow and later wished we had a bit of food left over for the himalayan tahrs which were fascinating creatures related to mountain goats.

Kt spotted one of the fallow deer next to the fence where we were standing and I gave her some food for him, then one by one all the rest came trotting over. There was no one else in the enclosure and we had the whole, very gentle herd to ourselves. Most were grown ones, but there were a couple of little ones too.

We followed some llamas or perhaps alpaca's that were being taken for a walk ... although there was no mention of them in the zoo brochure and there was no enclosure for them that we had come across.

In the first half of the park we ended up feeding some of our food to the very full kangaroos, some turtles in lemur lake, and a couple of emus. I got heaps of photos of the turtles who were both very friendly.

Kt also got the attention of the dingos as well, by clapping and generally calling them over the way you would with a regular dog. Both looked over at us with interest and one came right up to the fence to check us out. Then after a bit of a tussle with each other and a play gnaw on each others legs and muzzles the inquisitive one came back to us! Wish my camera had batteries at this point as we would have got a real close up!

Kt's sharp eyes helped us to locate a couple of animals like the green iguana who I could not even see until she pointed him out.

And she was interested in the brush tailed possom who was having a great nibble on a tasty looking silverbeet type leaf.

I hadn't realized we could feed the peacocks too, which were roaming along the pathways. One particular family with mother, father and about 5 or 6 chicks crossed our path many times. I tried many times to photograph them, but they kept on quickly melting into the undergrowth! At the very end of the day we got to see them inside the wallaby enclosure enjoying a drink of water. We then followed them along the fence line and the male peacock ended up jumping up onto the top of the fence in between kt (who was further up the path) and I. I thought he might try and get aggressive and was a bit worried but after wobbling on top of the fence until kt moved further forward and out of his way, he dropped to the ground and his wife followed him!

I was horrified that they might be leaving their chicks behind but relaxed when I realized the chicks could get through a small triangular hole in the bottom of the fence.

My family and theirs crossed paths.

There was only one chick left in the enclosure who looked like he might not know where the gap was ... so I quickly crossed over to where kt was so that he had a clear uninterrupted run and he doubled back and found the gap and was reunited with his family.

Another peacock later on looked like he might be interested in Kt's ice cream (and my shoe).

All in all it was a great day although I am totally exhausted now after returning home and having to launch straight into making dinner.

I will stop posting now and have a shower and go to bed!