A Day at the Zoo

It was definitely an animal-themed weekend in this household!

Besides the farm outing on Saturday, we spent a gorgeously sunny Sunday afternoon at the Tygerberg Zoo!

I find zoos very depressing places, no matter how well the animals are taken care of.

And yet, when I think of childhood trips to the Pretoria Zoo, I only remember the excitement and wonder at seeing all those animals. So I suppose the disillusionment only came once I knew enough about the world to be able to guess at the sad stories behind each captive animal.

But my children are still too young to comprehend any of that, and to Sweetpea especially, the zoo was a tremendous treat! She LOVED being able to get so close to these animals that she has, up until now, only seen in picture books!

So here, without further ado, some pictures of our day:

Is she pink with white stripes, or white with pink stripes?

He obviously has NO IDEA yet!!

Just give me dirt, Mom!

She LOVED these guys!

 

White Lions - apparently just a colour deviant and not a different breed.

My Australian husband was SO excited to introduce us to this CASOWARY, a bird from his part of the globe, looking like an ostrich-sized guinea fowl without the spots! The World's Best Dad explained that the horn on the head is used to clear the bush with, and for self-defence, and that a casowary could cut open a man with it! It also has long toes with very scary, thick, sharp toenails! I'll have to read up on this one!

We also saw brown bears, leopards, chimps, a tiger dozing in the shade, African wild dogs, racoons, several species of buck, many different monkeys, a Toucan (the highlight for me!), a snow owl, and many more. Far from being a world-renowned zoo with gleaming ammenities, we had a really good time and I actually enjoyed the 'ruggedness' of it all, and the fact that we could really get rather close to the animals.