Zoo

Monday is still a weekend day for us as the New Yorkers aren't back online until Tuesday morning our time. This week we headed out to the zoo. We took Ethan a couple of times in america but hadn't been back to Auckland Zoo since our return home. Ethan now understands a bit more about what is going on and enjoys the animals more. He also understood when we told him that morning that we would go to the zoo. He responded by taking us through his full repertoire of animal nows - tiger (ggrrrrr with swipe of the paw) - lion (same as tiger only slightly louder) - monkey (oh ah oh ah oh ah) - elephant (bbrruuuuh with right arm raised to the sky like a trunk).

We were met at the gate by the animals from the petting zoo who were out for a bit of a walk with their trainers. They included a beautiful angora goat. His trainer was telling us that the poor little chap had a very painful leg. The pain was particularly intense - to the point where he couldn't even touch the ground with it- every time the vet visited or his carers came to check up on him or ask how he was. Mercifully he seemed to have no pain at all at feeding time and he could run for the food with everyone else. He seemed to be painfree as well when he thought no one was watching.
We had a sunny start to the day just long enough to get around most of the animals.



























The rain came eventually and we had to take refuge in the bandstand for our flask of coffee and zarroos (Ethan's word for crackers and biscuits including homemade muffins).

Some unsuspecting schoolgirl left her lunchbox unattended. Ethan called upon his commando training to mount a secret assault.

Shortly after this the peacock paid us a visit at the bandstand and gave us his full display. Unfortunately our camera batteries had died a death by this time.