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Friday, May 27, 2016

David Attenborough, eat your heart out...


Admittedly, Sir David sat amongst a family of gorillas, whereas we just pointed at a group of meerkats and shouted "Simples!", but that doesn't mean we weren't brave. They could have kicked sand in our faces at any time.

Anyhoo, our plan for yesterday had always been to go to The Eden Project. Thursday was supposed to be the day the rain came, and being only an hour north-east of Eden, it seemed like a good opportunity for Lisa to pick me an apple in paradise while we dodged the showers in and out of the biomes.

But in the tradition of last minute changes, I looked at the blue skies outside, looked at my children's history of loving animal parks, and - most important of all - looked at the £25 ticket price of The Eden Project, and decided that a day spent looking at plants probably wasn't the best thing for my family. We've got weeds on the balcony at home, and they can look at those for free any time they like.

So we went to Newquay Zoo instead...


We visited their sister zoo in Paignton three years ago, when we looked more like this...


In those days you could just wheel Toby into frame and click the shutter button. Now it's more of a challenge, where his presence in family photos is largely down to luck, perseverance and a willingness to endure tantrums.

But the good news is that we had a lovely time at Newquay Zoo. I'd read reviews on TripAdvisor which criticised it for being small, and claimed you could see it all in an hour or two. Well, it's possible my family are just sloths, but we were still there five minutes before closing time, and I don't think we saw every animal. Although we did see a sloth. The surroundings were beautiful, the staff were friendly, and the kids loved every minute. Apart from the minute we spent looking at the otters, which Amelie told me was "boring". Mainly because she'd spotted the Tarzan Trail assault course, and was keen to move on.

Personally I loved the otters...


But my favourite animal was the lynx...


I think it's a vegetarian, but I could be wrong. I also liked the Bleeding Heart Pigeon...


It looks like it's been shot in the chest, but in reality it's suffered a far worse fate: it's been chased by Amelie and Toby...


We watched the lions being fed...



... which was fine until we found out they were eating Dartmoor Pony. That put a slightly different complexion on things. Apparently cows and pigs are too fatty, so they prefer My Little Pony.

We also posed for some delightful family portraits...



And we discovered that Amelie's the same height as a lion, while Toby's as tall as a lioness...


But the highlight of the day was feeding time. I had a bowl of cheesy chips in the café and an ice cream that was to die for, but the kids enjoyed it even more...


Those Visayan Warty Pigs are thought to be extinct in the wild, so it's the closest Toby's ever come to feeding a dinosaur.

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