Sunday 15 June 2014

The Zoo Zoo Zoo!

Bebe in the butterfly house

It was Queens birthday weekend this weekend, which means a long weekend for most of the country! Yay! We packed up the kids, and with the in laws and a handful of nieces and nephews in convoy, we visited Melbourne Zoo. 
Even though we left earlyish (arriving just after 10) it was busy. The car park is enormous which is great, but we had a park forever away from the entrance. Lucky we had lots of willing hands to carry babies and push prams. The kids actually fought about whose turn it was to push the pram the whole day. They seemed more interested in Bebe and Bug than in the animals which was cute but also a little annoying. You want then to be super excited about the animals, that's the whole point of being there! 

Least Bug was pretty excited. She learnt to say Zebra and Monkey while we were there. And was excited to see the 'monkey was eating the water' and 'ook mum zebra running' (how cool is it when you can actually have a 2sided conversation with you minis, they are amazing little creatures ). 
I have mixed feelings about zoos. I understand that the conservation aspect is so important but it can be sad to see a bear pacing up and down an enclosure that just seems too small. Melbourne zoo is pretty good, and they seem to be doing there best to improve it all the time.  At the moment the big cats are getting new enclosures.


 And the animals seem content enough. The elephants where swimming which was amazing to watch and the orangutan's never fail to entertain. 


One thing I really liked, that possibly won't stand out to most was the kids play area near the meerkats. Secret Tunnels underground and organic like stairs up wee hills make it a space any kid would love. I wish local parks would create spaces more like this than the conventional climbing frame/ slide/ swing combo most contain.

I can defiantly recommend Melbourne zoo for a good full day out.

Facts and figures.

$30 per adult, $13 per child (4-15), family (2+2) $68.50 other family, member and concession options available. 

Toilets are basic but clean. The change room I used (near the end of the elephant walk) was spacious and clean). 

Be prepared for the bakery and plaza eatery's to be busy at lunch but both have a good range if options to suite most (my niece didn't find anything she wanted, except hot chips, but she turned down my home made choc chip cookies too so apparently she's just a bit of a fuss pot! :) ).  prices were average $3.50 for a coffee, $6 for a basic (but yummy) burger, $5 for a pie). There was a bistro there too but we didn't check it out. 
Plenty of picnic space available, which was my original plan but we were a bit unorganised as initially we were going Monday but the in laws changed it to Sunday at the last minute... Anyhoo... 




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