3 days in Canberra, Part 2

Picking up where I left off, we woke up the next morning and boarded a Murrays coach to make our way to Canberra's National Zoo and Aquarium. Canberra's nightlife proved too much for Craig as he'd woke with a full-on hangover.  We'd be mixing it up with the night before with fellow adventurers, and he might have overdone it.

One of the best bits of the human brochure project was being around so many like-minded adventurers both young and old. Everyone had stories to tell of where they'd gone and what they'd done. The stories came too easily and the glasses started stacking up outside Tongue&Groove. Is that the best name for a bar/restaurant or what?  We gabbed and giggled. The young kids kissed. Then a wise person thought we should call it a night and guided us back to our rooms.

When Craig hopped on that Murrays coach a few short hours later, the world was still spinning.  He had a look that I hadn't seen on him before. I knew the look. I'd seen it on myself. He liked to tease me about my vomit-y face. The sign that I had a good time the night before and was paying the price the next day. After he lived it up in Canberra, I'm certain he'll never tease me again.

Our wheels for most of our journey was a long white Murrays bus under the steerage of Roy, the bus driver and tour guide. As we weaved our way through the ACT, Roy gave us the lowdown on Canberra and loaded us up on puns. As an aside: if you're visiting Australia and want to see Canberra, Murrays runs express coaches from Sydney CBD into Canberra starting from $19 or so. When I head back to visit the National Art Gallery, that's what I'll hop on board.

Since we were traveling as part of the human brochure experience, our itinerary had been well laid out for us.   The first port of call on Saturday was the zoo where we'd each have an animal encounter followed by free time to roam.  The National Zoo and Aquarium is a privately owned zoo that offers a number of encounters and adventure tours for kids and big kids alike. We'd eyed up their website and read all about it. Being a bit of a shorty, I was a wee bit disappointed to see that some of the encounters were height restricted to 150cm. It's been a long time since I've been told that I'm "too short for the rollercoaster." I felt unnecessarily uneasy about it. The night before our trip, I woke up at 3am stressed out that I'd be turned away from the exhibits. I thought I'd miss my chance at an encounter or worse... end up as a play toy for the cheetah.  Luckily all that fretting was for nought!

The adventuring humans were split off in random groups and whisked away to the awaiting animals. Some went to pet cheetahs.  Others fed sun bears, giraffes or sharks. Another lot got up close and personal with the roar of the lion. We would have been really happy to do anything of those things except the sharks. My kiteboarding, surfing husband was adamant that there was no way he'd feed a shark - not then, not now and not in the future.  I was excited about all of the encounters, but one on the brochure stood out to me. Nestled among the big photos of big animals, was a sweet little red thing poking it's head over a guest's shoulders. As soon as I saw it, I secretly hoped that we'd get to pet the fox. Only, it wasn't a fox... It was a red panda and that's exactly what we got to do!  Legendary experience!

In a small group of four, we were led into the enclosure to meet Tenzin, a red panda.  Bronte, the keeper, told us about Tenzin's story along the other red pandas at the zoo. The National Zoo doesn't treat them as performing animals, so each of the encounters is based on the mood of the critter. If they don't want to eat then, we'd just leave the food and scoot away. Luckily Tenzin was more than keen for his morning grapes, and we took turns dishing them out.

Tenzin can be a little bossy at times. He'd gently grab your hand or your shoulder trying to get at his next morsel. His warm little paws were amazingly sweet as he clasped our thumbs. The other humans will tell you otherwise, but I'm certain we had the best encounter! Craig did a great job of grabbing some video of me with Tenzin. Genuine smiles there!

After Tenzin had his fill; we popped over to visit Ellish, a female red panda.

Then we enjoyed some free time roaming around the zoo.

We stopped by most of the exhibits... except the sharks, of course. Craig didn't want to see the sharks. I have mixed feelings on zoos. I love visiting them and think they are very important in spreading information about conservation and awareness. I worry about the animals though whose lives have been disrupted for our amusement. I found it reassuring talking to the keepers and learning the story behind each animal at the National Zoo. Some had been taken in as rescue animals, others were part of a captive breeding program to help species that are no longer thriving in the wild. I took away quite a positive experience from my time there.

Grinning from ear to ear, we popped back on our Murrays bus for other awaiting adventures...

I'll be sharing more stories soon, but in the meantime pop on over to Human Brochure to see what arts, culture, foodies and family folks got up to!