On Friday being late for school, which we so usually are, was not an option. We set the alarm for 7.15 so we could press snooze multiple times and still be up in time. We left the house at 8.30 to go and meet the students by the big tree. Everyone was very excited, we're going to the zoo! We crossed the road to the Tescos car park where the coach was waiting. The children excitedly boarded the coach, unaware that up to a quarter of them would be suffering from travel sickness. Luckily Pastor Henry guided us to his van and we would make the trip to the zoo alongside the coach, every now and then waving when we found ourselves next to it. When we got to the zoo some of the children looked very queasy as they got off the coach.
After a quick drink of Milo for everyone we began our walk around the zoo. The first animals we came across were the giraffes. There was even a baby one, very cute. It was quite small, it must've been only a few weeks old. Next we saw some elephants, of the Asian variety. There is a lake in the middle of the zoo where many storks walk free. They remind me of the storks in Dumbo, bringing babies to all the animals. Well they must've been busy recently because we saw a lot of little ones! We then saw some birds, including a cassowary, hyenas and made our way to the ape centre. They had chimpanzees and orangutans, who seemed keen to play to the audience. Despite the playful orangutans messing around in their enclosure, the children had spotted something else in the ditch separating the enclosure from the visitors - a huuuuuuge fish. It must've been about two metres long. Other animals we saw - lions, sponsored by ING Direct, elephants, sponsored by Carlsberg, camels and tigers. We made our way back towards the entrance where lunch was waiting for us.
Someone had brought along a huge tub of rice, some chicken and vegetables in sauce and an egg omlette type dish. There was plenty to eat and everyone ate happily, already tired from the amount of walking we'd been doing in the morning. After lunch and a rest we continued our tour of the zoo. Saw the hippos, penguins, fish in the aquarium and reptiles. Lesson of the day - do not give your camera to a child to take pictures. My main worry of doing this was that he would drop my precious camera and it would smash into tiny pieces, but after a while I realised that he was ok at holding things and this was not really a risk. However, in his helpful nature he was trying to delete the bad pictures as he went along, not realising that he had been pressing delete then, "all from today." Devastation! I lost all my wonderful pictures from the morning's events!! After finally clocking on to what had happened I tried to keep my cool! (After all he was just trying to be helpful bless 'im!) I told him not to delete any more pictures and that I wanted to take some for a while.
We found ourselves back at the elephant enclosure. The elephant was standing by the ditch and could almost touch the children with his trunk. They were so excited and all crowded round reaching out to the beautiful beast! By this point everyone was tired and needed a rest so I took the opportunity to go round and re-take some pictures. We took four of the boys with us. This time round we found the honey tent where we could taste honey and see some bee specimens. The lady there gave us all a lolly as well, very nice. We also went on a bear hunt, and found them in an obscure corner of the zoo. After rejoining the others we had waffles and watched the animal show, consisting of many performances such as sea lion basketball and a cockatoo.
On the way home we got the coach with the children, who were all given a precautionary sick bag. It was a very bumpy ride, I understand why so many were sick on the way but this time I think most people were asleep after a day of excitement and lots of walking.
All in all a wonderful day! We went to bed early and slept for ages!
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