First stop was the Reptile Park a few k's from the camp. Jo didn't fancy the idea of looking at 'smelly' reptiles so she sat in the car and read a few more chapters of her book (The Perfect Divorce) - coincidence I'm sure!
It turned out to be a really great little 'zoo'. Not many animals really but set in lovely grounds on the side of a hill (so plenty of stair climbing). Lot of the time it was like 'Where's Wally'. Kids learnt a lot about camoflouge (I didn't learn how to spell it though). Lots of little gekos and lizards trying their best to hide from us but there was a monkey that came out of hiding to talk to us and then there was the aligator.
I explained to the kids that although crocodiles are dangerous and vicious animals that would take the first opportunity to kill and eat you (hopefully for your sake in that order), aligators on the other hand are quite docile and would rather scurry away from confrontation. Sure I'd heard that on Animal Planet. It was at this point, just as we got close to the aligator pool that she (must have been a she) leapt from the water and snapped her jaws shut about an inch from where I was standing.
I didn't jump too high, well not as high as Laura did when we went back a second time and she did the same to her .... besides we were quite safe. There were two layers of chicken wire between us and the jaws.
You can see how flimsy the wire fence was. There was even a nice little gap at the bottom of the wire above the concrete wall for the kids to get their hands in. Only in NZ
I felt safer with the tortoise
Went back to see the monkey but he was hiding this time so didn't get any pics. Must have been taking lessons from the chameleon.
No comments:
Post a Comment