Wild Animal Park

We headed to the Wild Animal Park with my parents the day after Christmas. It had been a while since my parents had been and we always love going, so we had a great time! Jake provided the commentary to spice up these pictures:
One of the regular places to go is the lorikeet aviary, where you can buy a cup of nectar to feed the lorikeets. We've done this a number of times, but it's still fun! Daniel thought it was too bright and wore sunglasses, and kept a straight face because he remembered a lorikeet bit him last time. Joshua also remembered he'd been bitten last time, so neither was willing to hold a nectar cup.

Another regular location to visit is the "Petting Kraal" where you can pet some members of the Wild Animal Park's largest collection of deer in the world.





It must be the place for deer; on the tram ride we passed a group of Mule deer, not officially part of the Wild Animal Park but there anyway, munching on the grass and examining us as we passed right next to them. The fires last October probably burned away lots of their food in the surrounding hills. On the way to the park we passed a number of burned hills with black bits of scrub and partially burned cactus patches.

On our way to the tram, we checked out the lion exhibit. The male was sitting on a box right on the other side of the plexiglass! I bet Mary Ellen never thought she'd be this close to a real lion.

This is probably as close as we ever want to get to a lion. How often do you get close enough that you have to move away to get a decent picture of the lion?

The boys remembered these ears from some pictures we took with them a few visits ago, and insisted we do them again. Daniel in particular loved them, along with the giant tortoise shells kids can crawl into a little further on.