Posted in Children

"An extra, extra special treat! " Those were the words of my son today. The last day of the school holidays and we went to the zoo for a treat with some good friends of ours. It started out a beautiful day - hot and sunny and a blue sky. We packed a picnic lunch to share. We didn't realize that in a few short hours we'd be freezing cold, wet and running through a storm for shelter.

Me and Noni pushed our baby buggy's around the paths as the older children ran from each different animal. They were so thrilled with each animal they saw. It's so lovely to see and hear. The first big thrill was watching the tigers being fed. We had 'front row' viewing. The little ones were the teeniest bit scared, but the older ones loved it. I caught my 8 year old trying to jump/climb a tree later just like the tiger! It's hard to see clearly in the photo,  but the tiger is halfway up the pole getting his meaty lunch. Note the blue blue sky.

We loved the tigers. They're so beautiful and we actually got quite close to them later where the path goes down the side of their enclosure. This one here in the photo was making soft growly noises at us.

We chose a nice little spot by the river in the center of the park to have our picnic lunch. The ducks joined us, and we had to jump up a couple of times to stop the very little children going too close to the edge of the river! We dined on egg sandwiches (I had to buy the white bread - first loaf of bread I've had to buy in months, but egg sandwiches just aren't the same on thick slabs of wholemeal), potato chips, an iced orange cake, fruit loaf, cheese slices and buns and lovely sweet mandarins. It was a feast and food always tastes better in the outdoors.

I love this following photo I quickly snapped when four of the bigger kids were lined up on the fence watching the Rhinos (in the far distance). Note the sky starting to cloud over. Only grey clouds at this stage though, so nothing to worry about.

We went up to see the Cheetahs. We have been studying them in our homeschool science study and Hugh especially wanted to see the fastest land animal on Earth, the one that 'breaks the speed limit' according to him. One day we learned that the Cheetah can run up to 112 kilometres. The children wanted to know how fast that was, so I said I'd show them next time we went out in the car. We have a nice long country road out here, and I put my foot down and got up to 100kms, but I didn't dare go over that. 100kms is our speed limit on the open road, so I explained that the Cheetah could go faster than that. They were fascinated and Hugh has remembered it as the animal which breaks the speed limit! LOL!

We spotted this sign on the cheetah's fence. It made us laugh out loud. I just had to get a picture of it.

We would have liked to have come back later in the afternoon when they release the cheetahs for their run, but unfortunately the weather intervened.

Noni took the baby back to the car for his feed, while Vaughan, Robin and I took the rest of the children on the little train ride. They'd been desperate for a ride, and we could see grey clouds had turned into very black, threatening clouds and low rumbles of thunder sounded in the distance. The little train trundled in to our station and we jumped on. It has a canopy roof, but no walls. We got halfway back to the zoo entrance when the skies burst open and it began to rain..... hard!! And then it hailed - big solid white balls of ice. I was on the end of the seat and it was blowing in through my end - fortunately I had on a big winter coat, so I turned by back to the hail and tried to protect the kids from it. They thought it was fun, fun, fun, especially as the hail kept landing on my lap - and they could scoop it off my knees to look at. Just as we got to the entrance the thunder and lightening were giving us a splendid show. There were lots of screams and laughs as everyone piled off the train and made a dash for the building. The children were having a great time, and I love thunder storms, so I was too. Then the hail turned to snow!!! Yes, snow!!!! Meredith yelled out, "God has answered my prayers. I wanted snow!" The cars in the park were thick with a mixture of hail and snow and the grassy banks were white. It was so much fun. We loved every minute of it - so exciting.

When we arrived home, we found that it had snowed out here as well - just little bits left over. I hope it is a taste of things to come this winter. Snow in Canterbury is a bit of a novelty - it doesn't always happen and we do love it.

I don't think the children will forget this day in a hurry. As Hugh said; going to the zoo was a treat, but having the storm happen as well made it an extra, extra special treat.