"You do realise we're going to have four blogs about the zoo!"
"Or we could just wait until someone posts and then all link to it..."

Saturday morning dawned and I got up early to jump in the shower and avoid shower queues, which I hate as much as I hate slow walkers. I already knew we were going to the zoo, despite everyone's attempts to keep it a secret. Call it intuition... I called shotgun on sitting in Zebedee* but since we had both Kirst and Tariq's car going, it meant I was in the car that was leading and I had to navigate. This isn't a problem, I am actually quite good at navigating [just don't tell the ND]; once my brother and I collectively navigated my dad from Capetown all the way down to the Cape of Good Hope and back. The fact that we nearly got locked in the National Park at the Cape of Good Hope was a) not our fault and b) is not relevant.

So after a quick stop at Tesco's for snacks, we were on our way. I managed to navigate us all the way there, including a lovely detour round a housing estate that the directions seemed to think a good idea, and we arrived. Plastered with sunscreen, we stumbled through the giftshop vowing to return, if only for the cuddly lion whose mane looked like a cross between Rach and Lucy's hair. Upon entering, we found the flamingos including a white one and in what became a trend for the day, I decided that one was Gilly. We next happened upon the spider monkeys; Tariq decided he wanted one as a friend and he would take it to the Bullring, and Gilly and Kirst tried to do balletic impressions of them.


We wandered past the Aviaries, sang 'Kookabura sits in the old gum tree', found bears with afros and barbary sheep with beards. We saw sleeping tigers and a lynx with the most incredible ears that unfortunately didn't show up well in photos due to the wire fencing. We saw giraffes and I ran past Lucy who thought I was a kid for about two seconds - but they were eating the leaves and I wanted to take lots of pictures.


Due to this, I missed Tariq being his usual brilliant self. Apparently Ali was wondering, out loud, why there was a goat in with the giraffes and Tariq informed her that it was a baby giraffe. After a minute of arguing, Ali pointed out the real baby giraffe. Oh and it turns out the other thing was a gazelle, but Ali was still closer than Tariq.


We found mongeese [mongooses, mongeese...?] and decided since they were sociable, they must be Gilly too. Then we saw the otters, another one of my favourite animal, and I spend ages watching them play and trying to take pictures that didn't show reflections in the glass. We decided it was a good time to stop for ice cream, had an obligatory group photo and moved on. And for anyone interested, I didn't spill any ice cream this time.


We wandered on and found Lemur Wood, possibly one of the best things the zoo had to offer! We were let through the gate, told to put any bottles or food away and not to touch the lemurs. But have you ever seen lemurs? They are so fluffy so we spent the duration of the time we were in the 'wood' debating the merits of getting thrown out of Lemur Wood.


We then found ourselves walking down an incredibly huge hill and knew that at some point we'd have to walk up it again. At the bottom, we found chimpanzee's, tiny ostriches that you couldn't ride and some aviary thing that was so hot inside that Rach and I found the door and walked out. After sitting on the grass for a rest, to apply more sunscreen and try to convince Tariq to sit in the little hole, we moved on to the petting zoo and discussing the fact that Gilly once got fired from a petting zoo and the fact that Gilly's Mike should grow a beard like the one on the goat. We also found what I called, and have since been calling, the rug bunny since it was laying flat and looked like a rug; it was also decided that it was Kirst.

We wandered past the lions -it's not quite the same when they're not wild and defending their giraffe carcass- and said hello to the orangutangs.


We stopped for some lunch and proceeded to the sea lion show but got bored rather quickly so walked over to the castle. Gilly and Kirst pretended to be lords and ladies and do arabesques [they probably weren't even doing that but it's the only ballet position I know and I wanted to show off] and I vowed to take a picture of them leaping in two takes. Lucy and Tariq got locked up, I tried to convince Tariq to climb a wall and Kirst and Gilly taught Ali ballet positions. Then much to my photographic joy, we found a statue of an elephant, Kirst immitated it and I wanted to see how many people I could get to sit on it.


We wandered on and found meercats and stood and waited until it stood on it's hind legs in the classic pose, all the while giving it words of encouragement. After that, we sped through the reptiles since Rach hates snakes and we were already missing the Penguin talk. We spent a lot of time at the penguins, me taking pictures whilst others decided that watching the penguins made them want to go for a swim.


Eventually we had to leave, I said goodbye to the penguins and we successfully found our way home for presents and chocolate cake.


*Kirst's car