Close Encounters of the Amazing Kind - Chapter 4

One Sunday afternoon, June 6th to be exact, Rick and I pondered what we should do for the afternoon. It was a cold, dull and overcast day and showers erupted periodically. We had been to a Lutheran Church in the morning to hear a Bach Cantata, and we were invited out for dinner in the evening to some Australian friends who had previously been on exchange in Canada. Was there time and inclination to fit in yet another thing? Always!

So Rick and I decided to explore a tourist attraction here in town close to our house – the Melbourne Zoo! It has been described as a " window to the world's wildlife'. It is spread over a vast mount of green space,

so we had to do a lot of walking to see all the animals.

We had read in the paper that the female tiger had given birth to quadruplet baby tigers, so that was our first port of call. It was an amazing sight – two of the babies liked to spar with each other, while the other two were more sedentary.

The Melbourne zoo houses a whole pride of elephants.

It had recently also boasted of its new baby elephant, Mali, so that was, of course, next on the agenda. We were not disappointed!

Thereafter we wandered here and there through the zoo, looking at a variety of birds.

The hot and humid butterfly house was our next definite stop.

The zoo also has a very impressive African animal exhibit.

Did you know that each zebra has its own distinctive stripes and that each giraffe is marbled differently? We saw animals that were familiar to us, but still always impressive.

We saw animals that were new to us, like the fairy penguins, the Pygmy hippopotamus or the peccaries. Alas, although we watched it swim, the elusive platypus still could not be captured on film!

We saw endangered species, like the orangutans and the gorillas.

Alas, in real life, the gorillas were all sleeping! The orangutans were all so cold, that they mostly huddled under covers in their area. There was a special forested area for the tree-top apes and monkeys, mandrills and lemurs.

It was here that I came across a white gibbon sitting up on a branch. I made a monkey sound to him and he responded by looking intently at me, and then he scooted right over to me as far as he could along the screen. I moved next into the glassed-in monkey viewing enclosure, and he followed me there stopping directly in front of me on the other side of the glass, hanging with one hand onto a railing, but putting his other hand onto the glass right over my hand, as if he wanted to touch mine. All the while he looked at me as though he wanted to communicate with me. If I moved my hand, he moved his as well. It was so touching, another close encounter of the amazing kind. People around in the enclosure just couldn't believe it! It was the highlight of my visit to the Melbourne Zoo.