Paradise Wildlife Park 2013

So today the kids should have gone back to school for the first day of this term, but no it was a teacher training day. So I took the day off of work and we some cheap Groupon vouchers we took the boys to Paradise Wildlife Park. It was a little bit cold to say the least but we wrapped up well and the rain stayed away all day. So in the end we actually had a really, really fun day out and both Joshua and Brandon seemed to have so much fun.

 

Can you spot me, Josh and Little B?

Since last time we went to Paradise Wildlife Park there seems to have been a few changes. We noticed a Speedway Museum which I don't recall being there, then there was a large play train and fire engine for the kids, a new wolf walk area and a kids wet play area for those hot summer days.

This is the full size train which the kids can now climb and play on.

Brandon was confused as to why the train didn't have a steering wheel.

Joshua takes to the trains controls.

Joshua doing a bit of role playing by driving the fire engine.

The pirate ship in the kids play area is always a favourite of the boys (even if the slides were a bit wet from all the rain last night!).

Brandon climbing the cargo net on the side of the pirate ship.

Joshua playing at being Captain Hook.

Brandon cleaning the wet slide with his nice clean, dry trousers!

Joshua isn't stupid and comes down the slide only after Brandon has cleaned it for him!

Once we finally dragged the two boys out of the play area we managed to actually go and see some animals - after all that is the whole point of visiting a zoo in the first place.

Little B headed straight for the Meerkats.

We got a stunning close up view of the beautiful white tiger.

Not such a close-up with the zebras who preferred to keep their distance today.

The penguins were being cleaned and the boys loved watching them diving in and out of the water as the zoo keeper attended to their enclosure.

Willaby wolliby, bibbly, bobbly, boingy, boing, boing to the blue billabong.

The boys were fascinated by the size of this reindeer's antlers, but kept saying they needed to be cut back.

The leopards were prowling backwards and forwards along the front of their enclosure.

No signs of 70mph runs from the cheetahs who were having a lazy day.

We were fortunate enough to be at the tiger enclosure when a tiger talk was going on and Rocky (the big male tiger) and the two female sister tigers came up really close to the side of the cage. The zoo keeper was amazingly hand feeding them through the cage. The snarls, growls and general demeanour of these beasts was just awesome.

Would you out your hand that close to a tigers mouth?

Rocky and the two sister tigers giving us a good showing.

A sleeping white lion.

Brandon posing with the white lion.

And then Joshua.

Brandon hates alligators but they are still one of my favourites.

The helter skelter didn't seem to have much "slip" today probably due to the cold, damp conditions and so the boys gave up after one go of shuffling their bums down the slope.

Another new feature at the zoo is some little electric F1 cars for the kids to drive and some pedal quad bikes. The quad bikes were a bit small for the boys but the electric cars were perfect (except for the fact that Joshua and Brandon were just obsessed with crashing into each other or cutting each other up). Brandon is absolutely mad about Redbull racing cars but amazingly he didn't want the Redbull car and opted for the Lotus instead.

Joshua takes the Redbull car.

The rams Brandon's Lotus into the side wall!

Can you spot Joshua in the tree house?

Captain Hook, Joshua and Brandon.

 I keep forgetting about new additions to the zoo since our last visit. Anyway another welcome new additions is a safari themed 18-hole crazy gold course. Me and the boys slipped in a quick round but they were both cheating like mad (god knows where they get it from). There was also several arguments between them about who tee's off first each time. But we did eventually get the full 18-holes in, but it is anybodies guess what the final scores were. Me and Joshua did both hit holes in one though.

Crazy gold through the giraffe legs.

Joshua and Little B posing under the giraffe's.

Me and my boys on the zebra hole.

Brandon teeing off over the water way.

3 very cheeky monkeys.

I do worry about Brandon at times as he seems to be showing an interest in motorcycles and like any responsible parent, I really don't want him to go down that road. My fears were further confirmed when we visited the Speedway Museum and he was in his element looking at all the bikes, trophies and video clips of racing. His favourite was the ice speedway racing where the bikes were kitted out with tyres which had 2" spikes all the way around the tread.

You can't see in this picture but these are the spiked, ice speedway bikes that Brandon loved watching.

Joshua at one of the Speedway displays.

To end our day the boys wanted to go on the little train ride thought the fox, wolf and owl enclosure. You also get to see some large dinosaur displays which are scattered through the woodland area.

Tina and Joshua riding at the back of the train with two sabre toothed tigers behind them.

Brandon is very good at identifying dinosaurs and likes the T-rex.

Then he saw triceratops..

.....and finally stegosaurus which he now knows all about the plates and spiked tail etc from his various books and from watching Dino Dan and The Dinosaur Train.

Finally a nice picture of Brandon showing us his best kangaroo impression.

 

So role on the next teacher training day.