I promise I’d walk it every day

6 October 2008

Giraffe

Lauren and I went to the zoo just over a week ago, shunning work for a gloriously sunny day outside, looking at giraffes and eating ice lollies. Damn, being a grownup is awful. But do you know what is the best fun? And I’m sure Lauren will only concur: going to the zoo with someone who walks around the zoo saying, “I saw these in the Galapagos”. All that money to spend a week in an archipelago halfway around the world and I could have just hopped onto a train and spent £17 to see a damn penguin in London. Though it wouldn’t have been a Galapagos penguin. They’re a special type of penguin. More expensive.

We saw all sorts of wild beasts, including a couple of lions, who chose to do the wild thing right in front of us, leaving the small group of visitors outside the enclosure to get all British and flustered, not knowing quite where to look. There were the gorgeous giraffes, so content just chewing on lovely, lovely sticks (I’m expecting one of those giraffes for my birthday, by the way – gift wrapping is optional), zebras, a variety of crazy birds, gorillas, burrowing owls, warthogs, creatures great and small, cute and ugly.

There’s also a “meet the monkeys” enclosure at the zoo, where you can walk around in the same area in which black-capped spider monkeys are climbing and jumping about all around you. Jumping into a kid’s pushchair as that Starbucks paper cup he’s holding looks as though it might just contain food – thank you, that’s so thoughtful … damn it, that’s just a cup of pebbles. What the hell, kid? It’s best not to hold your phone out at arm’s length to take a photo of the monkey who’s staring at you from his branch either, because as the warden warned the man doing just that, you risk having the phone swiped from your hand by the cute little thing you’re trying to photograph. Fortunately a D80 is too heavy to snatch, so I have a few photos to share.

Click for the set

Posted in: friends, photos

Comments

7 Responses to “I promise I’d walk it every day”

Lauren
6th October 2008 @ 9:19 pm

hooray for fun at the zoo! :)

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bethany actually
6th October 2008 @ 10:46 pm

Uh…I’m pretty sure going to the actual Galapagos Islands to see these animals was hundreds of times better than seeing them in the zoo. Just sayin’. :-)

[Reply]
Thursday
6th October 2008 @ 10:51 pm

But how fab to have had a photo of you and Lauren with the caption “taken by the monkey at the zoo”. And how irritating if it had been a really good picture with spot on focus and ace depth of field and everything.

[Reply]
Peevish
7th October 2008 @ 1:48 pm

I saw your zoo photos on flickr and marvelled at the sharpness. Can I ask which lens you used? The whiskers on the giraffe’s chin beg you to stroke them. I wonder if giraffes like to be petted?

[Reply]
Sarah
7th October 2008 @ 4:07 pm

Some photos were taken with the D80′s kit lens (18-135mm), but I think most were taken with Dad’s zoom (55-200mm, f4-5.6). For the animals in outdoor enclosures we’d been blessed with a beautifully sunny day.

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sarahgrace
7th October 2008 @ 10:52 pm

So…did you get to feed the giraffe? Because that is awfully fun and weird, all at the same time. :)

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Rayne
8th October 2008 @ 5:52 pm

When Scott and I were first married we did this safari thing in Texas. Which looks surprisingly like Africa, anyway, I decided I had to feed the giraffe. Scott hoisted me up on his shoulders and I held up the little bag of giraffe kibble chunks and the damn thing wrapped this hideously long, sticky, purple tongue around my wrist and arm and lifted me a few inches of Scott’s shoulders. Then stole the bag and ate it. The bag as well as the chunks.
Scott’s reaction? He said that if eating the bag made the giraffe sick and we had to pay for it he was not going to be pleased. There I am with an arm covered in giraffe slobber and fairly certain I had been just seconds away from being the first known person to ever be consumed by a giraffe and he’s worried if it gets a tummy ache?

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