Melbourne Zoo.

We made the biggest mistake today. Being a Sunday, we slept in as usual, but I talked Ken into going to the zoo anyway, as it has been years since we were last there. From the time we left home, it took an hour and 40 minutes to get inside the gates. The traffic was abysmal, and finding a parking spot almost impossible, until Ken found a spot around the back (near the rail entrance) which he just managed to get into with me directing him. There were more people at the zoo than we've ever seen, and there must have been about a thousand people queued up to see the elephants, so we gave that a miss. If we had waited, we wouldn't have seen anything else, so we chose to wander around and look at everything else.

Ken hates crowds, so between being pushed and shoved, and the heat, he was having breathing problems, so we had to sit and rest frequently. Most of the animals were asleep in shady spots, so we didn't see much anyway. Ken said he'll try to get a day off work and we'll go again to see if we can see Mali, but I don't think there's much point now, as people say she is growing so fast, she'll just be another elephant soon! I only got a few photos worth putting on my blog.


Snow leopard feasting on a piece of meat. He/she must have been hungry to have come so close to the wire, because all the other big cats were asleep in the shade at the rear of their enclosures.


Many years ago, there were all kinds of bears at our zoo, but we only found this one (and its mate) today.


The Zoo has several varieties of Macaws, but this one was the closest that I could photograph.


This critter had a large audience! He scampered back and forth across the glass dividing his enclosure, apparently hanging on to a railing that we couldn't see. He was happily posing for photos, and I don't know how his eyes would have felt after all the flashes going off in his face!


Patterns on the coats of Giraffes and Zebras in the one enclosure make an interesting contrast when they are standing next to each other.