The two-year old's first day at the Zoo

Holiday at home does not feel like holiday (I have been complaining), but we did a bit of local Zoo visiting today. It felt good to get out of the house and to leave the DIY list that gets bigger and bigger... (Like Hubby hammering in some nails for pictures, and the hammer head fell off on the tile. Now the tile needs to be replaced! “sigh”)

The Johannesburg Zoo is a great place to take a kid. The toddler is two already. We could have taken her a lot sooner! She had a blast.

I remember how the cages used to look at the Zoo when I was a child. It was all steel cages with cement floors. I used to be quite depressed after a visit to the Zoo. A lot has changed since then. Thankfully! Most of the enclosures are replicates of the natural habitats of the animals. There are glass panels to look through and more open spaces for the animals! It does not look like steel cages anymore!

The toddler wanted to move non-stop, and did not appreciate us stopping for coffee or lunch.  The toddler tantrum is getting a bit much nowadays. Especially when in public! Horrors when she goes into high pitch mode and throws the tantrum on the floor. At home we ignore. But it is very difficult when it happens in a restaurant... I cannot proclaim anymore - with a smug shoulder shrug - that we don’t have it as bad! Just tonight I thought my head was going to explode because of the loud piercing shriek when I washed the toddler’s hair! Yes, the Terrible Twos has arrived!

We saw most of the animals, such as elephants, giraffes, lions, snakes, owls... Mieka was not impressed with the Max the Gorilla statue (see photo top right hand corner), but had no problem with the “live” animals. It rained near lunch-time; with thunder and lightning. But luckily there are a lot of trees. And when the sun came out, it was a scorcher again!

We got in some much need exercise as well, and in the end we had to cut some corners. Our feet were killing us! We will definitely need to go back to check out the animals we have missed!

(Photo: My first attempt at a collage with my new Photoshop software.  It’s not very user-friendly, is it?)