I had entered a competition in a magazine several weeks earlier and lo and behold, I won a family pass to any of the zoos. The kids chose Melbourne zoo. A great choice I think as it meant the least amount of driving to get there.
So I checked the weather forecast. Showers. Thunderstorms. Clearing in the afternoon.
Hmmm. What to do, what to do.... I had already told the kids we were going, and I couldn't really crush them by doing a 180. So I made the executive decision to still go - rain, hail or shine. We would take our raincoats and umbrellas and the kids could splash in the puddles, and if it got really heavy we could stop in at one of the eateries and have a babycino or something.
So I told the kids about my plans to go, even though it was supposed to rain.
Miss 5 says "Well we can just take our raincoats" and I say "yes, yes we can".
And Miss 4 chimes in and says "If it gets too wet we can just go inside" and I say "yes, that is very true".
And Master 3 pipes up and says "And you can put a bruschetta on my head".
"I beg your pardon?" I say, eyebrows half raised with a look of what can only be described as pure confusement (that emotion when you are confused and amused at the same time).
"You can put a bruschetta on my head" he repeats.
A bruschetta. On his head.
"Yeah, to stop the rain!"
"Oh. An umbrella."
"Yeah!! Umbrella!"
The things they say. These kids. It took an enormous amount of strength not to laugh when I observed Miss 4 and Miss 5 discussing something and trying to work out who got to go first. In order to decide they played a game of "Rockets, paper, shoe".
So we were heading to the zoo. That morning it was fairly dark, and there was rain coming off the awning. But I was determined to go. Determined. And so we puddled around a bit and took far too long to get ourselves organised and get our little picnic made, so we ended up leaving an hour later than originally intended. By which time the day was, well, it can only be described as glorious. Absolutely amazing.
Great, I thought. Nice day, walk around, relax. Ba bow. We arrive and every man and his dog had had the same thought. And because we were an hour later than intended we had to park literally in another postcode. But at least we found a park. Albeit a bazillion miles away.
I didn't remember how hilly the zoo was. Immensely hilly. And whilst I applauded my ingenuity in packing a massive picnic, complete with full water bottles for all of us, it added to the weight of the pram, so not only were my legs burning from pushing said pram up the hill, by my arms felt the burn too.
We saw a lot of animals. A veritable plethora of animals. But none who lived in darkness, for the shrieks of Miss 4 at any sign of diminishing light precluded us from engaging in such activities.
We did manage to catch the seal show. Along with 1000 others. Probably the highlight of the show was when the seal first jumped off his little rock and into the water, which nobody else found remotely interesting. My three however squealed with delight, so loudly, that the other 1000 people laughed along with their joy. It was quite a special moment actually. After the third or fourth squeal of delight from the kids in a 23 second window I opted to have a quiet word with them and suggest that perhaps they don't need to squeal every time the seal jumped into the water, considering he was probably going to jump in at least several hundred more times.
So we watched the show, and enjoyed it. And moved on in the quest to find the gorillas.
Poor choice it would seem. Because Miss 4 and Miss 5 did not want to see gorillas. Even though Master 3 did. You would think that by the democratic rule I would have said no gorillas. Nope. I threw in my own vote for gorillas so Master 3 could see them. So we walked (treked) the however long it was to see the gorillas, who, ironically, decided to play where's Wally and we didn't get to see them anyway. Fabulous.
On we went, back again to wherever the hell we were and my legs were slowly dying as were my arms, and my ears were starting to cave in with the incessant whinging Miss 4 had turned on since the unfortunate falling off rock episode at the seal arena, about which I have not yet spoken because, well, I must have tried to block it out. The people beside us asked if she was the middle child. "Yes, as a matter of fact she is". And they nodded knowingly, and I could see the pity in their eyes. Gotta love random stranger pity. It rocks.
So next stop was the lions. We had intended to see them earlier but sadly had opted for the path that had the stairs to the walkway and not the ramp, and when I went to turn around the response was far from favourable so we just kept on going. And so it was a few hours in the future from that response that we found ourselves on the walkway looking over at, what, um, nothing. No lions. None. Not one. Where. The hell. Are the bloody lions??
So Miss 5 has scaled the fence saying "where are they?" And Miss 4 is trying to copy Miss 5 and Master 3 is in the pram saying "I want to get OUT". And that's when we see the zookeeper. In the lion enclosure. Some bright spark says "Gee I hope she remembered to put ALL the lions away. What if one's hiding behind a tree?" Yep. She wouldn't have thought to count them would she. I know I would have just herded them willy nilly - one, two, three, ah, whatever, I'm sure they're all there.....
And as zookeeper chick is roaming around whacking slabs of meat against various pieces of wood the sounds start. It was very Jurassic Park actually. Metal crashing against metal as lions restrained begin to smell the meat. Then the roars. Low and slow at first, building, rising to not so much a roar as a bellow, spat out rhythmically, crescendoing to a monumental fortissimo as the zookeeper finally finishes her rounds.
Then out they come. Stealthily, looking, almost creeping, scouring the area for food. And we saw one go up on its hind legs to retrieve the slab of meat from atop a tree, wherein Master 3 yells out "LOOK!!! LOOK AT HIM!!!!!" and watches the lion grab the meat, then drop to eat it, wherein he then says "Oooooh look, he's having a sleep".
And so we move aside to let one of the millions of other people in the viewing area catch a glimpse of the massive beasts feeding.
And I was so hoping the car was nearby, which of course it wasn't. And then "I need to go to the toilet". Of course you do. So we find the toilets. And then we head towards the car and "I'm still hungry". And so we stop and have another little sandwich. And after that my speed increases as we heads towards the gate, such that the girls are performing little skips every now and then, but I have the car in my sights (not physically, it was miles away, but figuratively and metaphorically, man, it was right there), and NOTHING is stopping me. 4 hours of walking. And eating. And falling off rocks. And listening. And looking.
And I forgot to mention, we went into the butterfly enclosure. If you have a fear of moths and butterflies, it doesn't matter how much your kids want to go into the butterfly enclosure, don't do it. Just. Don't. Do. It.
So we escaped the zoo. Made it to the car. Left the carpark and headed towards home.
And it was then that I remembered I still needed to go the shops to buy Miss 5 a helmet for "scooter and bike day" at the school holiday program today.
It's true what they say - it really does never end......
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