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After we came back from camping in the Flinders Ranges, we stayed at Auntie Ree and Uncle Michael’s house for a week. After a few days, we all went out to Adelaide zoo. Specifically, Auntie Ree, Uncle Michael, Lily, Noah, Jarvis, Mama, Daddy, Samuel, Elliot, and I went to the zoo.  Traveling there wasn’t particularly exciting, so I won’t really mention it. Let’s just skip straight to the entrance.

After having entered the zoo, we went to look at the hippos. There was only one, but he was ENORMOUS. At first we didn’t see him, because only the head was out of the water, and we thought it was a big rock, but when he went back under, we knew it was him. Actually, I don’t know if it was male or female. He was really impressive. I had never seen a hippo before!

Next, we went on to the pygmy hippopotamus, which is like a normal hippo but is one sixth of a normal one’s size. The pygmy hippo was in plain sight, out of the water. He kept moving around, but didn’t go into the water. He could have easily weighed about 500 kg. Soon we got bored of him, as he wasn’t doing much, so we moved on to the otters. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any.

In the next enclosure, we had more luck- the three alligators were lying in plain sight, on the floor of the shallow pool of water. They were American alligators, really big. They were completely still.

Because they weren’t moving,  we soon moved on. We moved into the native animal section, and we saw wallabies, and kangaroos and emus.

I’m not going to list all the animals we saw, because there were so many, so I’ll just cite my favourite ones and the most memorable ones.

There were the siamangs, which made super loud noises that hurt your ears at the same time as swinging round and round the cage. They looked so big and strong; I couldn’t bear to think of what they would do to someone or something if they escaped.

My very favourites were the lions. There were two females and one male. We went to see them while they were being fed. The females were fed first. Each waited their turn, and when it was their turn, they would growl and scratch at the door for their food. But when the people who feed the lions went to the other side of the male’s cage, he stood up on his hind legs, making himself over two metres tall, and jumped at the metal door. He looked really fierce and dangerous. As soon as he got his food, he stopped. Apparently, they only get fed every two days or something like that.

When the lion came up close to us, I was a bit scared because his jaws could probably crush the bars of his cage if he tried. He was taller than me when he was on all fours! He looked so impressively big, muscular, majestic. We came to the lion’s cage twice; the second time they were sleeping.

I also quite liked the reptile house (unlike before, I now quite like snakes- my favourite one is the king cobra- not that’ll it’s related to our visit to the zoo), the snakes were long and fat.

There was also an adventure playground which was basically a walkway held up in the air by pillars and with many ways of getting up and a big slide for coming down. One of the ways to get up was a lift that you needed the password to use it.  Only I knew the password, because I was the only one who had read the map thoroughly and as the password was written on the map, I knew it. I’ve hidden the code somewhere in this post, so that people who are not supposed to know won’t know.  5000#

Anyway, soon some other kids noticed that I was using the lift and started to come up with me. Soon we were ten going up in the lift, running to the slide, going down it, running back to the lift and starting the cycle again. But soon some kids started to be silly in the lift, like pressing the emergency button, and  playing with the doors and stuff like that, so Lily and I left them to it. I had not told many people the code: only Mama, Samuel, Lily, Daddy and I knew. If you’re lucky, you’ll find the hidden password somewhere in this post.

What was funny, was that after Lily and I left them to it, they had to come back to us to ask us to put the code in so that the lift’s doors would open. They came back to ask twice; after that we left the playground and went to see the maned wolf.

More memorable animals included the Sumatran Tiger, the smallest species of tiger on earth- now critically endangered, less than 500 left in the wild. The first time we saw it it was in a small enclosure – not a cage – with thick undergrowth; we only saw a bit of it’s thigh. A patch of orange and black striped fur. It wasn’t so much of a view so we soon moved on. The second time we saw it was feeding time for him; he was in a much larger enclosure, and we saw all of his body as he paced the area, waiting for his food. Then we saw him eating his food- lots of pieces of meat, including a kangaroo tail. He ate lots compared to the lion, who was given one piece of meat per two days; the tiger was given four or five pieces a day. That also explains why the lion looked so skinny. Sorry, in the picture, the lion doesn’t look so much as I described it, but that’s the disadvantage of seeing things in a picture or photo rather than with your own eyes.

There were also the orangutans, well THE orangutan. He looked pretty sad and lonely. I felt sorry for him.

There were also the baboons, who were quite funny and all had bare, bright pink bottoms and noses. They must sit down a lot. There was a particular family of baboons that we were interested in. There was the mother, the father, the big brother and the baby brother. In the baboons’ enclosure, there was a giant play structure for the baboons, and on a part of it, there was a cardboard box, and the big brother hid inside the cardboard box, and when the baby brother came along, he jumped out of the box, and the baby brother was so scared that he fell off the small platform he was on (which was quite far from the ground) and after that I can’t remember. The big brother was VERY naughty, (which, by the way ISN’T true for all big brothers) and that’s what made the baboons funny.

There were also the giant pandas, of which there were two, a female and a male. They were huge, so I can understand why they are called “Giant” pandas. We saw them eating; they would sit down next to their ginormous pile of bamboo, and with their immense strength, would break up the bamboo into smaller parts using their bare paws, (well covered in fur paws) and everybody knows that bamboo is super super super super super super extra super extraordinarily super super tricky to break, which shows the pandas’ immense strength.

There were the giraffes, two of them, very tall.  When they were fed, the keeper had to climb onto a platform on the other side of the huge wall and hang the basket of leaves/grass/whatever they give giraffes just below the top of the wall so that the giraffes didn’t have to bend over to reach it!

Shall I write more about the reptile house? I think I will. While we were inside it, we found another lady looking at the snakes. She was a person who worked for the zoo, and she told us quite a lot about the snakes. Also, while we were in the reptile house, I remembered something that I had been trying to remember for about five months- rattlesnake in french! I remembered it because under the sign that said “Rattlesnake” it said, in small italic letters, “ Something (I’ve forgotten, but what!?!) Crotalus”,  which, of course, was the snake’s name in latin. But the “crotalus” part reminded me- Crotale is rattlesnake in french. But never mind that. I don’t even know why I brought it up.

Also, there was a petting zoo, (part of Adelaide Zoo) where there were a bunch of quokkas. Quokkas are small, furry and cute australian native animals. They must have been having an awful time at the petting zoo- the children were kicking their homes (made out of branches) apart, pulling their tails and picking them up. I didn’t really like that part so I’ll continue with my tour of the zoo. Near the petting zoo there were the mini penguins. They were just diving into and getting out of their pool and we didn’t have much time left, so we went to see something else.

There was also a maned wolf. We saw him in plain sight. He was reddy-orange and didn’t have much of a mane.

Maybe the most memorable of all were the sea lions. We came for the feeding, but we were there a good ten minutes  before it started- but we had a good time watching the sea lions swim gracefully around the pool. There were two- a sea lion and a sea lioness. When they swam, they hardly moved their flippers, they just glided through the water. When the person who was to feed them came, they stopped.

The feeding wasn’t just a normal feeding where someone throws fish into the water, but one where the sea lions had to earn their meal by doing tricks such as waving, jumping, racing, and all sorts of things. We were all absolutely amazed, and satisfied.

We had a good time at Adelaide Zoo. My favourite animals were: the lions, the sea lions, the tiger, the pandas and the giraffes. I also quite liked the Adventure Playground, with the lift and the huge twirly cylindrical slide that Samuel and I climbed up on the inside and on the outside.

I do hope that we’ll go back to Adelaide Zoo again sometime.

To be continued…

Not to be continued… …but watch out for new posts about Japan!