Bradley's Birthday Trip to the Adelaide Zoo

 Earlier we had arranged to meet my eldest daughter Karryn and her family at Aldinga for Easter (that's another blog coming up). We then went into Adelaide to finally get the washing machine sorted. This time they were going to exchange the machine. A couple of days beforehand it was Bradley's 6th birthday and being school holidays Karryn had invited the family to join them on a trip to the Zoo.

 Aaron,Debbie ,Bradley and Ryan

 We were quite a large group, 11 adults and 9 children. Most of us were family but Debbie and her family also came as her eldest Brandon was Luke, Karryn;\'s eldest best friend.

 Karryn and her family are memebers of the Zoo so they were able to get in for free. The main purpose of the trip was to allow us and some of the other family members the chance to see the Giant Pandas.
These 2 pandas, 1 female and the other a male were bought to Adelaide last year with much fanfare including the building of a multi million dollar enclosure just for them.
 Karryn's family had already seen the pandas several times. In order to see them it is neccesary to book a time slot and then queue up . Each time slot group is allowed an hour to view the pandas and take photos. the area has been well thought out and on the walk way are life size pandas from pre birth to 6 months of age .

Life size panda statue  4 months of agethe real thing- Wang Wang (male)Wang Wang

After spending our allotted hour withthe Giant Pandas we then spent some time geting photos of the children wiht some of the panda statues that have been set up for that purpose.

Karryn holding Diesel with Bradley and Brandon

 Alex, Ryan,Luke,Bradley and Louise

 After viewing the pandas we wandered around the S.E Asia exhibit and saw various other animals  including the ones below.

 Otters

This flamingo has only 1 eye as result of a recent attack

by vandals

Gibbon

 While we were in this area we saw a Sumatran tiger but I was unable to get a good shot of him as it was nearly feeding time and he was constantly on the move. Before we left the Zoo we saw a couple of more animals which rounded off a busy day for all of us as the Zoo was full being school holidays. To boost the visitors there were also a number of vacation care groups.  This made viewing some of the exhibits very difficult. Lemur