The House(s) of Fran_mart

Or indeed, a couple of days ago.  Before going there we visited the Victoria Markets for some groceries - not buying beer this time.  As Saturday a few more people around in the fruit area ... .. but the textile people were still setting up. A view from my room at the inn. We took the tram from Flagstaff Gardens to the Zoo.  Interestingly this seems to have been a free ride in that our Mykis still show $10 balance.  Perhaps because we are old people?   Our first call was the Baboon enclosure with an old male and a baby. That is more like a baboon! A munching giraffe. A spiffy Black-necked Stork.  I will not call this a Jabiru, no sir, not me. A Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo There is a lot of signage about not using natural resources of which a lot featured this chap.  I liked the slogan here! For followers of Discworld, the Librarian was taking a few rays on a high platform. Many colourful insects in the Butterfly House. Also, many punters. The keeper...

The National Zoo and Aquarium recently opened a new area and as we were still members we took ourselves along there.  So did a heap of other people the base car park was full and about 30 cars were parked on Lady Denman Drive.  The top car park had a few empty spots but I'd say they were on a nice little earner today. To get a bit of philosophy out of the way I have heard views that people should be out looking at Australian wildlife in the wild rather than those caged in zoos.  The usual official answer to this is to reference the captive breeding programs that zoos (including this one) do.  That is certainly a valid point.  However what I noticed was the large number of kids there who were really enjoying seeing the animals.  That has got to give them a good attitude for later in life. Plus I really enjoy seeing the animals and, due to guilt about leaving the small dog, can't take trips all over the place to spot them in the wild .  (And come to ...

A few things lined up today.  Ingrid and Alex wanted to go to the movies so we freed them up by taking Arabella to the Zoo.  It is also just before herself: turns 4 and thus changes from free-list to an astonishing $23 per visit!  and becomes part of the education industry pretty much full time. Wildlife viewing began in the rather full main car park.  There were a lot of pelicans there - not the attractive, white fish-eating birds, but the folk who got their driving licences by clipping a coupon on a Weeties packet.  The Jetta's horn got a bit of work. Not only was the main park full but so was a fair bit of the overflow park where we went.  So there were lots of people in the facility.  It was good to see that several of the exhibits had misters going to cool the animals down.  In some other cases punters were commenting how the poor animals were feeling the heat - for example hyenas.  Which naturally occur in places like the Ser...