Day 17 – Taronga Western Plains Zoo.

We’re not up as early as I would have liked.  So we won’t be at the zoo at opening time.  There are several ways you can get around Dubbo Zoo, you can drive your car, or hire these oversized golf buggies, we got the buggy last time we came here 6 or 7 years ago. 

Trouble with both of these options is you need to park at each exhibit then get out to view the animals.  At least with the buggies they are easy to get in and out from and you don’t need to lock them.  The other options is to ride a bike or walk, in most cases you can ride right up to the viewing area.  We elect to ride.   I stuff Caitlin’s bike in the back of the MUX, and by taking Liam’s front wheel off, I just manage to stuff it in the back seat.  A bit of origami in the seating arrangement, but it’s only 2 or 3ks from here to the Zoo.

We arrive at 10 and the carparks are chokka’s.  I’m not sure what the capacity plan is for the Zoo, but it about 4 times what I imagined.  I think they have calculated to whole zoo area and use that for their 4sqr mtr rule (Lion enclosure included!).

Justine queues to get hire bikes for herself and me, there are about 60 people queued up in front of her.   I get the bikes out of the car and get them reassembled and it doesn’t look like she’s moved. Eventually we get the bikes and then join the queue to enter the zoo proper.   Fortunately this was pretty quick and we’re in.

The first two exhibits are a Black Rhino and some Meercats.   There are so many people around it’s hard to keep any distance from each other.   It’s all a bit uncomfortable.  While it’s busy the whole trip around, from here the crowd feels a bit more spread out most of the time.   Some exhibits like the Lions are cosy.

The kids are enjoying themselves, however I can’t help but think we all like the idea of going to the zoo more than the actual activity.     We do enjoy the Siamang Apes as they play on a swing bridge and the Giraffes and Cheetahs are at least a bit animated.  Most of the other animals, while interesting are just standing or lying around.  Can’t blame them really.

Our bikes don’t have any gears so when going uphill they are a bit of effort and by the end we’re pretty buggered. 

Hire bikes returned, our bikes shoe horned back into the car, we quickly drop them off at the van and head to the golden arches for a very late lunch.  

We were planning to go to the club or pub for dinner, but the local options seem like large venues.  After today’s craziness and what we’ve been reading on the news,  having dinner in such a place isn’t grabbing us.  The kids are a bit disappointed, but they’ll get over it. Hell, they’d only have nuggets and chips anyway and they just had that for lunch.

Tomorrow we’ll try and get to a freecamp spot just outside of Sofala we saw on the last day of the big trip.   If this is full, we’ll check a spot just outside of Lithgow.   Both these options are close to halfway between here and home on Monday.

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