What do we do to pass a slightly overcast afternoon with a (nearly) one-year-old child? We take her to the zoo to look at some animals of course!
It seems whenever one goes to zoos that the ratio of animals to wandering around looking for animals is all a bit out. We came in and there were no elephants, we wandered round and couldn't see the tigers for the people crowded round watching them get fed. Slightly disappointed by invisible tigers we knew that the sealions were next on the feeding schedule and took our places. The sealions were certainly visible and having a great time swimming around and getting excited about fish. They do a nice shpiel to accompany feeding time explaining what the creatures are up to and who is who.
Laurel then got excited about some more fish in the (rather crowded) aquarium section.
And we spent the next hour or so making our way round the monkeys, giraffes, camels, shagging kangaroos, mouflon, penguins and so forth.
Another exiting and interactive part of the experience was the bats. They have an enormous warehouse-size indoor space for them through which the brave punters are expected to walk. The reality of this took a few moments to sink in. Yes there are bats flying around and nothing between you and them. They are of course are very good at not flying into things or people but they still go at an alarming rate. With a bit of hand-holding Jackie made it through in one piece!
Finally top marks have to go to the toilets - which have ultra-high-powered hand dryers which make your hands look like the skin could fall off at any moment. In fact the experience of using it was almost worth the entry fee by itself.... and at the last minute some elephants appeared to round off the day.
