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Published: July 14th 2017
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Woolly says – I’d been up for hours, I’d checked the weather forecast, given myself a good brush down and found a couple of stray pistachio’s that I had stored behind my ears and had my autograph book at the ready, the women were still nowhere to be seen. I’m not sure where he thought he was going at 6am but having settled him in front of his favourite TV show I managed another couple of hours snoozing. Woolly says – having chuckled my way through two old episodes of The Secret Life of the Zoo I was ready to meet all the stars of the show and their keepers. Based at Chester Zoo the series follows the births, deaths and efforts in conservation that the zoo is making and with the added bonus that they might be filming the next season I could find myself an even bigger star than I am already I couldn’t wait to get there. The Zoo was opened in 1931 by George Mottershead and his family, it is one of the UK's largest zoological parks at 125 acres (51 ha) and has a total land holding of approximately 400 acres (160 ha). George Mottershead collected animals such as lizards and insects that arrived with exotic plants as a child and a visit to Belle Vue Zoo in Manchester as a boy in 1903 fuelled his developing interest in creating a zoo of his own. He bought the land in 1930 following several years recovering from war wounds and the zoo opened for the first time on 10th June 1931. Rapid expansion followed. After the Second World War and despite the difficulty of sourcing materials, Mottershead had to be resourceful, the polar bear exhibit (1950) was built from recycled wartime road blocks and pillboxes. Today it promises new technology, award winning exhibits and enough baby animals for the girls to coo at all day…. If they ever get up that is!
Despite his moaning we left on time and the twenty minute drive brought back many memories of the drives up and down the A41 to visit my Grandmother who lived on the Wirral as well as the family picnics we had enjoyed at the zoo over the years. Woolly says – Having heard the stories before I concentrated on the brown signs and couldn’t help but let out a squeak as we pulled onto the immense carpark which was already packed with vehicles, I knew we should have arrived by 8! Having scanned our tickets, we were in and the first treat of the day was right in front of us. The Highway Family is the zoo’s elephant herd and having lost baby Harry last year I was overjoyed to see two new babies playing in the mud with their parents. The only words Jo seemed to be able to mutter was ‘there so cute’ over and over again, I had to agree with her for once as the smaller of the baby elephants slip down into the mud pit by accident and had to be pushed back out by his big sister. A look round their indoor habitat gave me great satisfaction and looked exactly as it does on TV.
Having prized ourselves away from the cuteness factor I pointed out a coffee shop for a chance to make sure the mammoth was fed and a quick look at the map. Woolly says – Chocolate brownie for breakfast, not bad at all. I was eager to get going so leaving the girls to sort the rubbish out I trotted past Mr and Mrs Highway giving a merry wave before heading into the tropical realm. Filled with huge plants, lizards and beautifully coloured birds it was deligithful, if you could manage to ignore the screams from a school party. As the women arrived I came face to face with one of the stars of the show, Mr Parsons. Mr Parsons is a chameleon and the episode that he had featured in had detailed his lonelyness and the need to find him a mate, this was done and they showed their introduction and their mating at the time. Blinking at me through his glass barrier I waved happily and showed him my autograph book, he turned and walked towards his bed, maybe he’d already given his signature to many times today, I could pop back and see how he felt later. Into the Jaguar enclosure we went, where much to Zoe’s delight we were able to watch two sloths sleeping on a branch which I thought was rather boring and not half as much fun as the lovely giant cat lying on his rock watching the visitors
whilst licking his licks, before he could get a taste for mammoth I led the way out and past the incredibly pink flamingos and the ring tailed lemurs.
Next on the map was the realm of the red ape, inside was amazing and very atmospheric unfortunately all of the red apes were missing or hiding out waiting for the mammoth to pass! Woolly says – I did spot an orang a tang with its small baby but everyone else seemed to be on holiday. The penguins were adorable and as we watched them launching themselves into their pool I tried to spot the ones that had featured on the show, looking so similar is a problem though and after five minutes I gave up and wandered towards the lions. Only the lioness was about and as we arrived a huge piece of meat came flying through the air and nearly landed on her head, she looked slightly surprized but it didn’t stop her from ripping into her lunch….hmmm lunch sounds like a good idea. A quick pit stop for more food seemed to fill his needs and we set off to find the bats.
Woolly says – I had always thought that Jo was bats so she should fit in well with them hehehehe. Inside was dark, very very dark, I took the sensible route of staying huddled inside Jo’s jacket as her and Zoe squealed there way through the low flying fruit bats by synthetic moon light. Taking gulps of fresh air as we burst back into the open, we all agreed that bats weren’t cute and not being able to see them flying right at you was sheer terror! Passing by the giant tapier’s and the capybara we paused to chat to Bliss the giant anteater, sadly she had lost her mate on the last programme of the series which had brought a tear to my eye as the keepers desperately tried to save him. She seemed happy enough but wandered off before I could get my autograph book out. With our legs starting to ache, well except for a certain small one in the party, we headed towards the newest of the zoo’s exhibits, the Islands. Woolly says – Set to show the rain forests and habitation of Sumaira, Bali, Papu, Sumba and Sulawest it was rather lovely to sit on a boat and let the paws have a break. As we passed warty hogs and cattle I peered over the side waiting for the sun bears, binturong and tigers to appear, as we sailed past each enclosure it seemed as though a mass exodus had taken place as not a single animal was on show, maybe they have decided on an early night. Undeterred we left the island’s behind and I trotted swiftly towards the rhino area. As we turned the corner the women went into overdrive with the cooing and arrhing over the baby rhino that was outside for the first time having been born three weeks ago, leaving them to it I headed into the night time quarters only to be greeted by a group of tourists who were clucking over the other new resident baby who had appeared two weeks ago, ok they were cute but not as wonderful as the full grown Black Rhino parents who were magnificent.
With the time ticking away quickly and the zoo starting to close for the day we reluctantly made our way towards the exit, the Highway family had moved inside and well we just couldn’t resist!
Woolly says – I stopped to wave at the zebra’s only to find the others had vanished, a tide of people were leaving the grounds as I spotted that the doors to the elephant families quarters were open, there they stood with big soppy expressions on their faces as the babies tried to pick up the hay, I sighed and wondered how long it might take to remove them and if the Highway family might have room for three lodgers for the night!
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Pretty
But not so safe