Sunday, February 21, 2010

A Visit to the Zoo - part 2


The girls walk out of the Zoo Cafe and head towards the Australian animal's area.


They have to past the hippo's enclosure first. Some of the girls stop to watch the hippos playing in the water. They point at the cute baby hippo who is watching his parents play.

                                      

The first Australian animal they see is the echidna. The echidna is a spine-covered monotreme mammal of Australia and New Guinea with a long snout and claws. This one is shuffling about in his enclosure, probably looking for ants to eat.


Yasmin is enjoying looking at the kangaroos because  they are her favorite animal.   When she arrived to live at Kowhai Corner she bought her toy kangaroo with her.


The snake is awake and hisses at the girls.   The girls don't stay long as the snake looks hungry.   They walk to the koala bear area.


The koala, or koala bear, is a slow moving Australian arborel marsupial with dense greyish fur and feeds on eucalyptus leaves.   The girls are allowed to hold a koala to have their photo taken.    Edna and Annabelle have requested a photo be to taken of them holding a koala.  Yasmin was holding a koala too but it climbed out of her arms before the photo could be taken.


The Tasmanian devil is a small ferocious carnivorous marsupial of Tasmania.



Serene, Tricia and Alana  go into the big shed which  houses the noctural animals.   It is dark inside. After their eyes adjusted to the dark they see a cream opossum sitting on a tree stump.


Further along they see a bilby, an endangered animal, on a tree. They hear a noise in the water and see a duck-billed platypus which is an amphibious egg laying mammal of East Australia. It has dense fur, a broad bill, webbed feet and a tail.
 

The girls meet at the zoo exit to go home. The black cockatoo starts talking and says "Gidday mate." The Hitty girls go over to talk to him for awhile before they wave goodbye and leave the zoo. Yasmin is looking forward to going home to give her toy kangaroo a cuddle and to tell it she has now seen real kangaroos.  This has been an enjoyable day for the Hitty girls.
   






Monday, February 1, 2010

Holiday Activities - January 2010


 Stephie,Sweets and Steve Sunshine are sitting, with Alana, Jill and Pat standing in between.   This photo was going to be the orginial blog photo, but I managed to take a better one.



Tricia and Thelma are looking at a model Viking ship made from bronze (no identification marks as to who made it).   Edna climbs in and looks around and thinks it would be scary to be out at sea in this boat.



 Thelma  climbs in after Edna gets out as there can only be one at a time in the boat.    Tricia wants to check out the other model boat on display.



This ship is a replica of Batavia 1602.



Tricia and Thelma visited  Fox Glacier where they each built a snowman and played in the snow.



Steve, Stephie and Sweets are going to travel in the covered wagon pulled by the Clydesdale horse and stay in the native bush for a week.



Abigail and Tricia admire the white Clydesdale horse.  (Beswick china)




  Abigail and Alana are waiting to get Michael Jones's autograph.He is a New Zealand All Black hero.