Off To The Zoo!

The October day dawned hot and sunny when 31 adults and 52 children boarded a double decker bus to head to the Auckland Zoological Gardens for a day of animal spotting. Morning tea under the band rotunda was a welcome start to build up energy before the children headed off on their adventure – it was going to be a long walk!

The gibbons were making a whole lot of noise as we headed that way and it was clear that they were very keen to show off their talents - much to the delight of the Preschoolers!

There were so many animals to see: tigers, seals, penguins, hippos, orangutans, tortoises, lemurs, alligator and a walk through the New Zealand native bird enclosure where parrots flew around our heads! A major highlight was every child hand feeding the giraffe – and the surprise of his long blue tongue wrapping around their little hands as they fed him cabbage leaves or celery.

Lunch was a welcome relief from the sun as we headed back to the band rotunda. Who knew October could be so hot! With all the walking, the children really did have great appetites!

With renewed energy we set off to explore some more, this time the elephants, lions, zebra, springboks, cheetahs, kiwis, wallabies, Tasmanian devil and flamingos, before heading back to the big corrugated iron elephant for a group photo.

The children were so well behaved and we had many comments from the public, in particular tourists from overseas, about how smart they all looked in their uniform and what great behaviour they showed! There were some very sleepy children on the way back to Preschool!