What a Zoo!

 We decided to take grand-daughters to the Melbourne Zoo today.  In an improvement on yesterdays effort Public Transport delivered us to their apartment in the CBD with NO problems.  Hopped on the 19 tram and all returned to normal after 1 stop.  "Please leave the tram. It can't move until a mechanic repairs it." So we wandered up La Trobe St and hopped on a 58.  (A minor problem really, as we would have had to walk a similar distance from the 19 at the other end.)

Somewhere along Royal Parade a group of people with loaded up wheel chairs got on the tram, including this small person driving herself, very competently.  Obfuscated to block evil AI face recognition.

She looked somewhat youthful to be in charge of such a device and in answer to my question, one of the larger people said she was 4 going on 5!  I tendered my congratulations.

Once into the Zoo our first animal was a secret Dingo!

I am fairly sure #2  was a Lion.  We saw 2, surprisingly both males.  I suspect the females are all out at the Werribee Open Range facility.

On our way around the lion area we came across some reptiles, including this humungous Reticulated Python.

We were moving swiftly as we wished to get to the seal feeding show and were tightish for time.  The show was very popular with the punters and deservedly so.  Here is a keeper rewarded the seal for retrieving the red paddle.  I suspect the seal enjoyed its task!

I think the guy here was running the Penguins through a weigh station and feeding them at the same time.  Again the animals seemed pretty happy with the process.

Next stop was a Komodo Dragon which had gone indoors to avoid the cool weather.  It looked a bit smaller than a decent sized Goanna, let alone the monsters filmed by David Attenborough on Komodo but is still around 2m from nose to tail.

Then to the Meercats.  Only 2 were evident but they were as always extremely cute,

You want cute? Try Ring-tailed Lemurs.  I asked a keeper what the penalty was for touching a droopy tail.  He said they let the Lions deal with that, which I thought was a pretty amusing response.

I suspect from reviewing a list of Lemur names this is a Black-and-white ruffed lemur: however I am not certain how many there were in this pile.

Our target in this area was the Gorillas.  This one seemed to have found herself a Winter jacket.

The jacket seemed not to meet the dress code for luncheon. There was a signboard listing the names and birth years of the 5 Gorillas in the family.  It also lists their favourite foods!  (Like a goose, I didn't take a photo of this.)

More reptiles.  This is part of their preserve endangered species policy - in this case Eastern Pilbara Spiny-tailed Skink.  The sign posits that the spines on the tail prevent predators pulling them out of cracks in the rock.  (I suspect Gina Rinehart 💩is a bigger threat to the species than any natural predator.)

Boyds Forest Dragon.

The final exhibit we stopped at was the Pygmy Hippo.  I am not sure how happy a life it leads swimming constantly around its relatively small pool.  However the Zoo does seem to be aware of the need to give its animals a reasonable quality of life so I will trust them.

As a departure from recent events we got back to the kids apartment and then ours with no PTV (nor, in fact, any other) mishaps.