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Geo: -32.243, 148.605
Arrived at the Zoo to get tickets for the Giraffe Encounter, sold out already for the morning and we were there at 8.15am. Managed to get tickets for the 2.20pm session this afternoon. Our Wild Africa Encounter is at 10.45am, so we left and went into town to give the guy at Auto Spares back his tool, he lent Mick to put the glow plugs into the ute. Mick is very pleased with the ute, it started straight away and has not given us an ounce of trouble. Getting 12L per 100 km, ( an olden but a good one).
We did some shopping then came back to the caravan until 10.15am, then went back to the Zoo, the beginning of a wonderful experience. I took 82 photo's of the beautiful animals, they have 700 to 800 animals at the Zoo, on 2,000 acres. It is the first open range Zoo in Australia and on the Wild Africa Encounter we were privileged to be able to go behind the scenes.
A face to face encounter with a Cheetah, named Sunktuit, 10 years old and in captivity they can live to the age of 12 years. The guide was very
This one liked my shirt
We were warned not to take bags, hats or have loose glasses because they will take them. careful when we arrived to make sure that we gave Sunktuit time to adjust to us being their and to realise that Helen was with us. If we had not done this the Cheetah was capable of jumping the fence so quickly we would not have time to have blinked. Needless to say we did as we were told, even the children with us obeyed Helens directions.
We then came face to face with a Black Rhino, who was 20 years old, this species is killed every 10 hours in Africa, so the Zoo have a breeding program going, to stop these animals becoming extinct. Eleven calves have been born at the Zoo, they have five female and five male Rhino's to breed from.
Helen then took us to meet Kohoola a White Rhino and her baby born 14th May, 2013, She had the baby 21 days later then expected and when it arrived the staff only knew about him when a maintenance worker asked if he would be able to enter the enclosure, because there was a baby in there. His name is African meaning Surprise and was beautiful to see. Mum weighs 2 1/2 ton and Surprise weighs 150kg.
We then
The Black Rhino
Helen gave him a fresh branch to chew on, they vary the snacks they give them. He is 20 years old. saw Cuddles, the last African Elephant in Australia, because of the Asian Elephants becoming extinct the Zoo is breeding and concentrating on them. To keep Cuddles company she has two camels to play with named Abe and Storm.
We then went out onto the Savanna, where there is a Zoofari Lodge completely booked out. We went through three lots of locked gates to drive through Zebra's, Camels, Water Buffalo, Giraffes and Elands who graze freely in a huge area.
The pinnacle of the day was at 2.20pm when we both had the opportunity to feed the Camels, they love the carrots so along with 50 other people we were aloud to feed them 3 pieces each. They have a 40cm long, blue tongue and rolled it around the carrot we held, it was so good!!
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Trevor
non-member comment
Marie you seem to have a facination with the 40cm tongue. Mick don't let the camels get the better of you.