The Zoo

While the girls were in Sydney for the Australia Day weekend, enjoying the beach and shopping for "wants not needs" with some saved up Christmas money we stole the boys for an afternoon to take a look at Canberra's National Zoo and Aquarium.

Despite my best efforts we never made it to the White Lion encounter and so I appreciated the good humour and interest the boys showed in the Fairy Penguins encounter instead.  The Fairy Penguin keeper was a mine of information about these cute little characters who eat an astonishing amount of fish (in big gulps!) each day

 Seeing this tree kangaroo (and joey in the pouch) was a first for me.....

 ..and a relief to see a healthy Tasmanian Devil without the facial tumours that are decimating the wild population.

 There were plenty of our old favourites wandering the grounds......

 ...along with the requisite exotics........

 The boys enjoyed this up close encounter with the giraffe and his afternoon snack - about a metre away from where we were standing. We got a great view of the giraffe's 45cm tongue in action.

And it is always a thrill to see a koala up close as they're hard to see during the day in the wild.

Our National Zoo and Aquarium is small in scale with a strong conservation message and a small but special collection of endangered animals from around the world, presented in sympathetic landscape environments.  On this scale it's hard to see how it can make a profit; so I guess we're lucky that its owner has made his money elsewhere and is passionately committed to what he's doing.

Seeing it all with the boys was a treat and the White Lion encounter will happen next time (when A is 8!)