On Sunday, after a disappointing breakfast (we had wanted to go to Quay Co-Op again, but it was closed, so we went somewhere else) we found the train station and just barely caught the train to Fota. I say "barely" because it involved us yelling at the automatic ticket machines to hurry up, and then running down the platform and jumping on the train just before it left. Because it was Sunday, we would have had to wait more than an hour for the next train if we had missed that one. But we made it. Hooray! We were going to Fota to see the Fota Wildlife Park. It's like a zoo, but with almost no fences. The monkeys all live on islands, and don't seem interested in leaving them, the non-predatory animals are behind small fences, but most of them can just step over, so you see animals just wandering around on the paths. The only animals in real zoo-like cages are the cheetahs (there must have been close to 20 of them) and the eagle. It was super cool. I've never been that close to some of those animals before. Here's some highlights:
As we came into the park, there was this mother capybara and her baby just chilling out near the picnic area. I've never seen these up close before. I didn't realize they were so huge. It's the world's largest rodent. It looks like a guinea pig, but it's the size of a sheep. Crazy.
Pelicans! Kalen had never seen pelicans up close before. She didn't think they would be that big.
Leapin' Lemurs! (Sorry, just taking a time warp back to the Kratt Brothers...remember them? Anyone? Just me? Okay.) Anyways, These lemurs were actually in the lemur area, but there seemed to be random lemurs all over the place.
This monkey kept posing for the camera. It was pretty funny. Actually, it kind of takes me back to the days of wee Ian's "sweetie pie" face.
A whole family of monkeys!
A gibbon chillaxin' in the sun.
It's like a little person! Look at his little hand! And his little Beatles haircut! Crazy.
This baby gibbon was very silly.
The family of gibbons put on quite a spectacular show for us. They were singing. It was so neat, because when they were all sinigng together, it was like they were harmonizing.
"Ooohhh Danny Boooooy!" (Don't they look like they're singing bar songs? See how they've got their arms around each other? Too cute.)
Look how close these wallabies were to the fence! We were about 6 inches away from them!
This monkey does not look amused. I'm kind of glad this one was on an island.
A black swan! Super cool!
Awww...the cheetahs love each other! <3
Heeeeere zebra, zebra, zebra!
With some of the animals, I was wishing that they would come just a little closer...
...others were already too close for comfort.
Much better. Just stay over there, Mr. Ostrich. Don't come over here again, please.
The giraffes finally came closer.
They brought their baby!
This one came really close! I'd like to point out that it was not necessary to use the zoom on my camera for this picture. She was about 6 feet away from us. It was amazing.
There were some llamas (or maybe they're alpacas) hanging out on the path. Either way, I wanted to run over and shave them so I could make yarn. :D
A baby bison! Awww. Just like home!
An oryx. These guys have crazy horns. They look pretty lethal.
We saw some ugly, ugly emus.
And a very pretty duck.
And a heron.
And a PENGUIN! This seemed very strange at first, but I suppose if they can live in New Zealand and South America, then they can live here. This one seemed very confused, though. He was trying to build a nest. I didn't think penguins normally did that.
I <3 peacocks. I chased this one around for about 5 minutes trying to get some good shots.
And so concludes our trip to Cork. Basically, it was awesome.
The end.
7 comments:
Elly, your pictures are so goooood.
I love the gibbon chillaxing. And the baby gibbon sticking out his tongue - priceless!
The peacock photos are amazing - clear and the colours are bright and beautiful.
What a great zoo!
Thanks, Jane!
That picture of the baby gibbon sticking his tongue out always makes me laugh. So does the close up of the ostrich (though that one wasn't so funny at the time it was taken).
It was a great zoo. Definitely something I would reccomend experiencing.
I remember the Kratt Brothers!!!!! I used to love that show, with Zaboomafoo:). The GIbbons are adorable, and that duck is nice but kind of weird.
Love the pictures!!!!!
That's right, I guess you and Ian used to watch Zaboomafoo. But when I was a kid, I used to watch their first show. It was called Kratt's Creatures. I loved it. But now I feel old. lol.
the cappa bera gave dad nightmare's
Poor Nigel. It is a bit like a giant beaver, isn't it?
Great zoo! Great pix!
I'm blaming the capybara photo for a scary dream that I had about Pippin being as large as sheep.
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