Surprise, it is Labour Day. No, not Labor Day

About mid-week last week, we were told that Monday, October 24, is a national holiday, and that the archives would be closed for Labour Day. Last holiday until Christmas.  (Nope, no Thanksgiving here either. In fact, basically no turkey--at least affordable turkey)  Yay! A free day. Well, we had a 3 day weekend. Didn't know what to do with it. Checked the weather, and it didn't look too promising for a 3 day outing on the spur of the moment. So we did Saturday as outlined in the previous post.

Monday started out overcast, and was supposed to deteriorate. We almost beleived the forecast. Went for a bike ride (me) and a hike (Lois).  But the day kept looking better. So we decided to go check out the Wellington Zoo. As zoo's go, it was on the small side. Also not too many of each kind of animal. But they also were caretakers for damaged animals. For instance, one of the penguins had only one wing. Another had one eye. But it was fun, and you could get quite close to many of the animals. In fact, we strolled through a few pens with the animals-like the emu's and kangaroos. No fence separating us. For a fee, you could go into the cheetah pen and pet a cheetah. That sounded fun!!

Here is a general listing of the animals: Kiwi, Sun Bear, Tiger, Penguins, Lemurs, Kea, Tamarins, Capuchin, Gibbon, Otter, Red Panda, Giraffe, Ostrich, Cheetah, Baboon, Tasmanian Devil, Emu, Wallaby, Dingo, Chimps and a few others. Not too big.

We didn't get a lot of pictures because some animals were tired, some very camera shy, some too far away. But here is a glimpse of our safari.

 They had 2 different habitats for the Cheetahs.

The Orangutangs had a hard life. It looked like all were males.

 This was a Tasmanian Devil. My, what big teeth in a small body. About the size of a badger.

The Dingo looked like a nice dog. Hmm. I watched Quigley Down Under too many times.

 A big family of chimpanzees

The red panda, from Australia. It is closely related to a racoon.

 This character is a blue tongued skink. You wouldn't believe how many I took to get one with the tongue out. I did a burst of 54, and 2 of them had it out. He is quick with it.

These little Squirrel Monkeys were hilarious.

Well, that was the safari.