Sparrow Lorelei and Robin Artemis photo gallery

Grandma and Trevor come to visit, July 2011
A trip to the Zoo

The very first morning Grandma and Trevor were here we went out looking for penguins. Our destination: the Zoo. Which is tricky to get to by car with two kids and three adults and a Yaris, but very easy by train.

Sparrow gets a good close look at a brown bear.

Wow, they have sand here! We're on our way into the marine section. Can you tell?

There's an outdoor bit at the start...

...then a giant indoor area that lets you see into the animal tanks from way down deep. Sparrow is standing amongst a life-sized sculpture of the giant kelp that grows out in the bay. She found it pretty awesome, especially with the spinning lights they had on the floor.

And we've made it to the penguin tank! There are lots of little fish, and Sparrow loves fish, but no penguins - just lots of grime in the water.

The grime was being stirred up a bit because there were divers in the tank cleaning the windows. We found a sign near here explaining that it was penguin breeding season and they might be in their burrows rather than out swimming. Oh well. I'd been so careful not to mention the "p" word for most of the visit so far just in case I remembered wrong and the Zoo didn't have any. And then we got here so we said "Penguins!"... but there still weren't any.

Robin had been asleep from the start of the train trip to here. But after he'd woken up and had a feed and change he thought looking at the fish was pretty awesome.

Outside again, but still in the marine area - this is the top of the seal tank (and there are two seals over on the right).

This is an artwork based around fishing. Sparrow went exploring in here because it was "tricky" and then got a bit stuck. If only we could all have toddler cages I mean such useful artwork in our homes.

And finally... penguins! Two of the fairy penguins had come out of their burrows and were standing at the top of their slide. Sparrow had trouble really seeing them - some ways away, and she's smaller than the barriers. When things are this far away it can be hard to direct her attention to something specific because there are so many things for her to look at.

These penguins were very easy to see though. "Penguins!" She was quite excited.

And here we got to a spot where we could see the burrow entrances in the sandy slope - it's a clever exhibit design. And there were more penguins popping in and out of burrows, so us grownups watched a while. Sparrow still couldn't see easily because she was too small, but she had a little look.

Brunch stop at the cafeteria on the way home - it was getting close to one little girl's lunchtime and she was definitely hungry despite having snacked in the penguin tank area. Robin is having a stretch and a look around.

Train trip home, and Robin is still inquisitive. He's checking out people.