vilakins | Valentines at the Zoo

We don't give each other cards, flowers, or presents for Valentine's (which was yesterday). Instead we go somewhere fun for a meal, and this year it was Auckland Zoo. We ordered a 'deluxe hamper' for two from the Darwin Cafe (really an unbleached cotton bag of food) and ate it at one of the wooden picnic tables while listening to live jazz at the rotunda through the trees. Then we wandered around on a calm, warm summer evening.

The first animals we saw were some of my favourites, red pandas. I love red pandas. They're an adorable mixture of cats, bears, and raccoons, and I could have spent ages watching them. I was furious with myself for forgetting my camera, but Greg used his mobile to get some pics in the fading evening light. Opposite the red pandas were the meerkats, much smaller than I'd thought, looking like earnest little bandits; so cute. We saw lots of other animals (mostly submerged hippos, a lion, a huge rhinoceros, lots of zebras and springboks, lemurs, and various primates) and ended up where the band were, where we had dessert: a Tim Tam cornetto each which I'd been wanting to try (and very nice too). It was a lovely evening.

I'll be back though--the new cheetahs are coming at Easter, and they'll be trained for public encounters like Charlie and Delta in Wellington. [bounce]

The best of the pictures Greg took (I'm still really annoyed I forgot my camera).

panda1
Red panda (they have the fluffiest, lushest tails)

carp
Huge carp in the hippopotamus pool (the hippos didn't surface long enough for us to get them)

lemurs
Lemurs (I thought this would come out better with their jaunty striped tails; oh, well)

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Red panda in the dusk as we left

I have wonderful photos from a previous visit to the zoo I should put up sometime (a laughing hippo, zebra bums, and more).

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yay! Sounds like a great evening, and thanks for sharing the pictures!

They're pretty fuzzy. I couldn't believe I left my camera at home, but we left in a hurry (having to get across Auckland in peak traffic). I must look out the ones I took last time; there were some good ones.

Eh, I'm a firm believer that enjoying things while they're happening is much more important than taking pictures to look at later, anyway. :) That having been said, thanks for posting these. Red pandas = cool!

I agree too, but I also love looking at pictures later to remind myself. I usually take one or two, then enjoy myself; I can't understand why some people want to see the world through a camera lens as if it makes it more real. There was no point for example in taking pictures of meerkats: they were too small and anyway it's their antics that are so cute. I got Greg to take one of the lemurs because they looked so striking with their bright, stripey tails, but the light was failing.

I got about three from my last visit that are worth posting though just because they're so unusual--if I can be bothered finding them. :-P

I love the fluffy tail on the red panda! They are lovely pics, they came out well considering. Sounds a great evening

They are the most gorgeous little things. I saw a giraffe! Too close away to get a photo though; it was going into its shelter trough the tallest, thinnest door I ever saw. :-)

I will be back for the cheetahs though and I'll make sure I have my camera next time. Two of them.

Ah, I love Red Pandas as well. So cute. But I must say the meercats are somewhat cuter.

They're lovely. There were about five very active ones in the meerkat enclosure, digging wildly, playing, and on guard. You can go through a tunnel to domes in the enclosure for closer views. :-)

In the office cube farms, we say that people looking over partitions are 'meerkatting'.

Lovely pics and a lovely evening--thanks for sharing:). I can't wait to see pics of the cheetahs later, ooh! Biiiig kitties!:)

I want to touch one!

That's a really nice Valentine's Day tradition to have - and it sounds a lovely time. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Thanks for the pictures, too. The red panda is *cute*!

They're adorable. There were at least six of them, constantly climbing and moving about, except for one who went to sleep, zonked out flat along a tree trunk. :-)

I want a red panda! What a lovely way to celebrate, so much better than keeping the card manufacturers in business.

Actually I want your husband too. Couldn't you rent him out? No one woman should have the sole use of this paragon...

The joys of geek marriage!

It sounds like a lovely tradition of your own. :)

Pictures of exotic animals are always welcome. I didn't know there were red pandas.

They don't look much like pandas except for their eye markings. To me, they're more like cat-fox-bear-raccoons, and about the size of a large cat, and very lively too.

Here's a better pic, scanned from this week's Listener (the article was about the woman in the pic, a high-powered exec turned fulltime mother).

You can see their size and utter cuteness there. She's probably feeding it fruit; they love that. The zoo hold 'encounters' like this for certain animals and birds at set times of the day and I'm going to plan my next visit around them. I want to play with one and touch one of the new cheetahs!

Glad that you had such a lovely time. :)

What is the blossom in the first photo? For me it rather stole the show from the red panda. :)

Um, sorry, you got me. It could be something exotic from their part of the world, but it doesn't look very Himalayan.

I love red pandas. I do agree with you, though, that it's better to take a few photos so there's more time to actually enjoy the day out.

And it was a lovely evening out. :-)

Valentines at the Zoo

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